A message from Canon Reed. J. John and his wife Killy

Thinking about what lies ahead, Killy and I spoke this verse every morning of every day throughout 2024. The idea of ‘a bountiful harvest’ has filled us with anticipation and expectation. Mentioning harvest in January may seem unusual but remember that when your life depends on farming, harvest is the point on which your year turns; where you look back to what you’ve produced and look forward to what you hope to produce. Harvest is a time of taking stock, and so is our New Year.

Even for us who are not farmers, ‘harvest’ is a rich word. It can be applied to other areas of life; many of our achievements in employment, sport, fitness can be considered as a harvest. The one, however, that is truly important – and ultimately essential – is a spiritual harvest: achieving good fruit for God. Such a harvest may be personal: perhaps a deepening of our spiritual life, a more profound time of prayer with God or a better Bible knowledge. It may be local: perhaps a richer involvement in church activities or in some neighbourhood Bible study group. It may even be global, reaching out across the world to support or share the good news of Christ. We could also have a spiritual harvest, working for the Kingdom in such areas as medicine, law, the environment or even politics. There are many potential spiritual harvests but don’t forget one truly important fact: you don’t get a harvest unless you first sow. Without planting, there is no reaping!

The fact is that while we are saved by grace, we do not grow as believers without effort. In terms of any spiritual harvest, we only reap what we sow.

So my question at the start of this New Year is simply this: what spiritual harvest are you working towards in 2025? Let me give you three encouragements from this Bible verse.

First, God gives a harvest gladly. We read, ‘You crown the year with a bountiful harvest.’ The year culminates with a God-given harvest. God is not a reluctant giver of fruit. We don’t need to twist his arm to help us be fruitful. His loving nature and his purposes towards his people are that they should have a harvest for the Kingdom. Every year now, I seem to go to one or more funerals or memorial services and it seems to me that all of us should have the goal that, when it is we who are the subject and not the spectator at such an event, there should be no struggle to find honest achievements to praise, only a struggle to list them all. ‘God loves a cheerful giver,’ says the Bible (2 Corinthians 9:7 NIV), and the reason he does so is because he himself is a cheerful giver. If you were to ask, ‘What does God want for me this year?’ then surely it is that he wants to give us a year that he can ‘crown with a bountiful harvest’.

Second, God gives a harvest graciously. We read, ‘Even the hard pathways overflow with abundance.’ Commentators suggest that these ‘hard pathways’ are some winding and uneven rural track, beaten down by the passage of carts and animals; the sort of ground that is hard for crops to grow on. I’m aware that many of you reading this could say with a sigh, ‘That’s me. I travel hard pathways.’ Perhaps your journey through 2024 was tough and steep, and the path forward for you in 2025 is unclear and unpromising. Yet notice, please, that this verse says that even these hard pathways will overflow with abundance. Even if you travel on the hardest of roads God, in his grace, can give you a harvest.

Finally, God gives a harvest generously. Look at the whole verse: ‘You crown the year with a bountiful harvest; even the hard pathways overflow with abundance.’ The picture is of some farm cart so overloaded with harvest produce that, as it bounces along this uneven track, fruits and crops tumble off it. There is a note here, not just of abundance, but of overabundance. That word ‘overflow’ suggests open hands that simply cannot contain all the good that is poured into them, or someone offering to pay for your shopping and so overloading the supermarket trolley that things tumble from it. Now we may see such undeserved overabundance in this life, and if so we need to have an ‘attitude of gratitude’. But all of us who serve Christ must remember that what we receive here is only an infinitesimal fraction of what we will have in eternity.

The God who we know through Christ is someone who gives harvest gladly, graciously and generously. To those of you who are already working to see a spiritual harvest, let me remind you of a verse from Galatians: ‘Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up’ (Galatians 6:9 NIV). To those of you who are not yet seeking a spiritual harvest, I can only make a simple statement: unless you seek a spiritual harvest, you will not get one.

J.John
Reverend Canon
www.canonjjohn.com