We all learn basic scientific laws in school—laws of gravity, motion, thermodynamics, and more. We are taught from a young age that such laws preside over the fixed order of the physical universe. Yet while everyone recognizes how they’re subject to such laws in the material world, many people act as though no such laws governed our moral existence.

But Scripture reveals this key spiritual principle: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7).

John MacArthur opens God’s Word to concisely but thoroughly explain this fundamental law—one which none of us escapes. What we plant determines what we will harvest; like begets like. If a farmer wants wheat, he doesn’t plant strawberries. That rule holds in moral matters too: A man’s character is the harvest of his habits. Yet too often, like impatient children, we wonder why the seeds we planted just yesterday haven’t sprouted yet; or we seek the life hacks, a way to cheat the system; or we’re simply astonished by the consequences of what we’ve sown. Study The Inescapable Law of Sowing and Reaping to learn how to properly orient your expectations in planting, and how to reap the harvest of Christlikeness that you seek.