Ecclesiastes 11:1-10
What does it mean to ‘cast thy bread upon the waters’? For me, it means Jesus is the “Bread of Life” and the waters represent people. This means we are to take the Gospel message to everyone we come in contact with. If I don’t preach or give my testimony I will not be casting my bread anywhere. That is true of all Christians. We were left on this earth to fulfill His mission of giving the beautiful gospel message to everyone we can and then leave the results to HIM. In verse 2 we read: “To give a portion to seven or eight…” means to me that we have enough of the gospel to spread around to everyone we meet. It’s not like real seeds where we have a limited supply, the gospel has no limit! In other words, we shouldn’t hoard this message but give it freely to those who need to hear it. Some of us may not see the results of our planting until much later after we are gone from this earthly life and have arrived on heaven’s shores.
Verse three speaks of clouds full of rain ready to shower down on the earth. Christians should not be clouds without water. There is something about that in the book of Jude. I think this speaks of readiness at all times to give out the message that brings life. The place where the tree falls represents the choice men make by the time of death, whether it is Heaven or Hell. Otherwise why would Solomon even talk about trees falling? Trees don’t make a choice about which way they fall. Death is what seals our choice. We can’t choose Christ after we are gone, so it’s important to make that choice to follow Him before our earthly life ends.
Verse four describes the excuses we make not to work up the ground and plant the seed. If we wait for “perfect’ conditions (ie. sunshine or rain etc) we will never accomplish anything in this life and we will go empty handed into eternity. The time to work is now! Verse eight describes a near-sighted person who does not look down the road to the future but only lives for the moment. One who does this lacks wisdom. The last verse tells us to put away evil from our feet. The way to do that is to keep our eyes on Jesus and follow in His footsteps.
Verse three speaks of clouds full of rain ready to shower down on the earth. Christians should not be clouds without water. There is something about that in the book of Jude. I think this speaks of readiness at all times to give out the message that brings life. The place where the tree falls represents the choice men make by the time of death, whether it is Heaven or Hell. Otherwise why would Solomon even talk about trees falling? Trees don’t make a choice about which way they fall. Death is what seals our choice. We can’t choose Christ after we are gone, so it’s important to make that choice to follow Him before our earthly life ends.
Verse four describes the excuses we make not to work up the ground and plant the seed. If we wait for “perfect’ conditions (ie. sunshine or rain etc) we will never accomplish anything in this life and we will go empty handed into eternity. The time to work is now! Verse eight describes a near-sighted person who does not look down the road to the future but only lives for the moment. One who does this lacks wisdom. The last verse tells us to put away evil from our feet. The way to do that is to keep our eyes on Jesus and follow in His footsteps.
