Break Up Your Unplowed Ground

Dear Worshippers,

A new season, is about to begin. No, I am not talking about the football season which we hope will see our Mountaineer football team crowned the national champions. I am referring to the fall, and the start-up of a cadre of ministries at church, including my favorite-choir.

I mention this because I am about to talk about plowing, sowing and reaping, and I want you to understand that I am aware we are entering harvest time as far as farmers are concerned, even while I talk about the beginning of the process. I am talking about the beginning because that is where we find ourselves in this community that revolves in great measure around the schedule of West Virginia University. In the fall, there is much excitement in Morgantown, but not all of it is centered around the university.

The verse that came to mind as I prayed about my word to you for this week was Hosea 10:12. To keep you from having to tear open the sticky pages from your Bible, at least for the moment, let me share it with you here from the NIV. “Sow for yourselves righteousness,/reap the fruit of unfailing love,/and break up your unplowed ground;/for it is time to seek the LORD,/until he comes/and showers righteousness on you.” I hope that last line is the desire of your soul as it is mine, to see the Lord shower His righteousness down upon us, the city which is home to the number #1 party school in the nation.

That shower will be the result of our cultivating lives of righteousness, loyal to our God. Cultivating is a part of the vision of our worship ministries, though we use the word nurture. Remember the vision, “Our Worship Ministries exist to nurture worship as a lifestyle characterized by sincere responses to God’s self-revelations.” This is all about growth: plowing, sowing, and reaping.

It is the first part that I want you to think about as we enter this new season. Where is some plowing necessary for you? Is there some area that you have left untended for a while? Though resting a field is a good practice, I hope you are willing to do the work that Lord has for you and in you in the days ahead.

Did you notice how this passage starts and ends with righteousness? This is all about the Lord and His mercy. In the chapter surrounding this verse, God is warning the nation of Israel to do some hard work and change their ways, or face the consequences. The Christian life is a life of change and transformation, though sometimes we are guilty of becoming far too comfortable. Part of the note on this verse from the NIV Study Bible says, “Be no longer unproductive, but repentant, making a radical new beginning and becoming productive and fruitful”. Receive that word from the Lord and break up your unplowed ground in this new season.

In Christ,

Pastor Scott