Galatians 6:8
8 For [hoti] he that soweth [speiro] to [eis] his [heautou] flesh [sarx] shall [therizo] of [ek] the flesh [sarx] reap [therizo] corruption [phthora]; but [de] he that soweth [speiro] to [eis] the Spirit [pneuma] shall [therizo] of [ek] the Spirit [pneuma] reap [therizo] life [zoe] everlasting [aionios]. KJV-Interlinear
8 For the one who sows to his own
flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit
shall from the Spirit reap eternal life.
NASB
The word for sow, ‘speiro,’ means to scatter as in
seed or investment, to seed, to receive as in acceptance or belief. And there are only two things in this life
that you can invest in and those are the flesh or the spirit.
The flesh represents all non-spiritual things. The spiritual represents all things that are
from God.
The word for reap, ‘therizo,’ means to harvest, to
receive.
And there are only two possibilities for harvesting,
which are corruption or life.
Corruption, ‘phthora,’ means decay, ruin, destroy,
perish.
Life, ‘zoe,’ means life in the greatest and fullest
possible sense imaginable. Which means
no loss, no decay, no failure, no insecurities, and so forth.
The things of the flesh come from the world. It is
all that you pursue or indulge in regardless of their nature. More important it does not include those
things that are mandated by or designed by God.
To invest in the flesh, or the temporal things of
life, you simply need do nothing with respect to the Bible and especially do nothing
that God mandates and expects of you.
And that is exactly what most of the world does,
which is to say, they do nothing expected of them in the spiritual sense. They
do not study daily, they do not confess daily if not more often, they simply
pretend spiritual things as they float their way through life, or they
disregard the spiritual side of life altogether for lack of interest. Anything that you invent or self-define is
the same as doing nothing.
To invest in the spiritual, you have to wake up and
learn what it is that God wants and expects of you, and then use and live by
those principles. But of course you have
to learn first.
You have to want to learn before you can
learn. You have to engage in a learning
activity before you can expect any benefits.
Then you have to use what you learn in order to reap the benefits of
what it is that you have learned.
Disregard your spiritual life or pretend that you know
what you are doing when you really do nothing, and you will get nothing but
failure, loss, and corruption out of life. That means your life is nothing more
than historical filler.
Make the changes within yourself and pursue your
spiritual life as God has defined that pursuit, not you, by first having
believed in Christ for only Christians can have a functioning spiritual life,
then confessing often enough so that you live in fellowship, also defined by
God, and then participate in a daily study, under instruction, so that you can
invest in and capitalize from the phenomenal blessings that God has prepared
for you. And then have a greater life
that you will never have from this world.
