Who Gets The Credit?

While reading in 1 Cor. the other day, I came across some scriptures about planting seeds. Actually the heading above that particular passage of scripture was "Watering, Working, Warning".

This caught my eye. We are told we reap what we sow, we are told to sow seeds into the lives of others. Well, when you plant a garden, you first work up the soil, then you plant the seeds, then you water, then you keep the weeds out by tilling around the new little plants, then you feed the plants with fertilizer, and then you wait for your harvest. The more you water, fertilize, and tend to those plants the bigger your increase of harvest. Well, the same is true with sowing the word into others. You can't just sow the word, then walk away and forget about that person. No you have to tend to their needs. In other words, continue to lift them up and feed them the encouraging Word of God. Then once their stalks become sturdy where they can stand on their own, with God you can let them grow. But who gets the credit for that growth. Who gets the credit for tending to those plants?

1 Cor. 3 vs 5-9....Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, you are God's building......

You see everything comes back to God first. He created the soil, the water and the seed. So who are we to take the credit for that which belong to Him first? We will be given due reward for our labor, but the credit still belongs to the Lord. Read on in the next verses of this passage. There was a foundation before we ever got started in building on His kingdom with our sowing.

1 Cor. 3 vs 10-11...According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus....

We need to pay attention to how we build on God's kingdom, because that is how we will be rewarded in the end. And we need to make sure that we always give credit to the Lord and not unto ourselves, for we did not lay the foundation we are just building on the foundation that was already laid for us.

Ephes. 2 v 8-9....for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast....

We do not save anyone, Christ does, No one saves us, Christ does. We are workers in His Kingdom, planting the seeds, tending to the new growth, getting ready for Jesus to Harvest. AMEN

Neta