Harvest of righteousness

 
Rolling wheat fields mark much of the land alongside the highway we take to visit our daughter. As we drove past harvesters in action recently, I noticed the conditions of fields. Some had green weeds poking up through the grain.  Others were free of intruders. I remember hearing of how my late Uncle Pete, a drylands farmer in eastern Montana some sixty years ago, took pride in crops that were weed-free, meaning a lot of hands-on work to pluck out the intruders.
 

As I admired the undulating golden hills, I thought of the Bible’s many references to harvest, particularly James 3.  Throughout this letter, James urges believers to make sure their walk matches their talk.

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.
James said the believer’s walk should have no room for the “weeds” of envy or selfish ambition, which feed into disorder and “every evil practice” (v. 17). Here’s what a believer’s life should “grow”:
But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. (vv. 17-18)

Sometimes it’s easier to understand those traits by naming what they are not. One of the “keepers” in my personal library is The Calvary Road by Roy Hession, published in 1950 by Christian Literature Crusade. In his passion for revival in the church, Hession names sins of the “self-life” that we need to ask Christ to cleanse from our lives. They include self-energy, self-complacency in service, self-pity, self-seeking, self-indulgence, self-consciousness and “self” behaviors like touchiness, resentment, worry and fear. Christ can’t fill with His living water a “dirty cup” fouled by such sins. Revival comes with cleansing.

However you see it—a weeded wheat field, or a washed-clean cup—I can’t have that “harvest of righteousness” without honest self-examination and confession. It’s God’s way, and the best way.