From Labour To Rewards Part 2 by Rev. Christie Bature: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

The Design Was Always Fruitful Labor

Many people are not afraid to work. They are afraid of working with no results — afraid of repeated disappointments, cycles of near-success where something always collapses just before the breakthrough arrives. They are afraid of eating the bread of sorrows.

Psalm 127:2 describes it: "It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, and eat the bread of sorrows." God designed labor to produce fruit. Fruitlessness was never heaven's original design. But the fallen world operates under a curse — after Adam's transgression, God declared: "You will toil before you eat. This will no longer be easy."

Deuteronomy 28:12: "The Lord will open to you his good treasure, the heaven to give rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand; and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow." Psalm 128:2: "For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee."

What Fruitless Labor Looks Like

Fruitless labor is sustained effort that continually produces little, unstable, delayed, stolen, or disappointing results. Its signs include:

• Constant effort with minimal progress — like an octopus wearing roller skates: eight legs moving, one body going nowhere. Always busy, never advancing.

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• Cycles of starting over — repeated collapse, repeated setbacks. Whatever is built doesn't hold.
• Financial leakage — money comes but mysteriously disappears without account. Haggai 1:6: "He that earneth wages earneth wages to put into a bag with holes."
• Exhaustion without fulfillment — constantly at work yet remaining empty.
• Misplaced labor — working hard in the wrong direction. A person can climb a ladder successfully only to discover it was leaning against the wrong wall.

Haggai 1:5-6 captures it precisely: "You have sown much and bring in little. You eat but have not enough. You drink but are not filled. You clothe yourself but there is none warm. He that earneth wages earneth wages to put into a bag with holes."

What Causes Fruitless Labor

• Disconnection from God — Psalm 127:1: "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." This does not mean doing nothing — it means human effort without divine backing produces frustrating results. You are building, but without God's hand, it remains vulnerable to attack at any moment.
• Operating outside purpose — forcing oneself into wrong careers, wrong relationships, wrong environments. When operating outside purpose, labor becomes far heavier than it needs to be. Jonah struggled violently when running from his assignment. Disobedience creates storms.
• Lack of wisdom and poor decisions — not all hardship is spiritual attack. Lack of skill, unwillingness to learn, poor planning, and inconsistency produce fruitless results without any demonic assistance. The enemy gets credit for consequences that were simply the harvest of unwise choices.
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Rev. Christie Bature
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• Dishonest shortcuts — Proverbs 13:11: "Wealth gained hastily will dwindle. But he that gathereth by labour shall increase." Fraud, manipulation, fake branding — shortcuts that carry hidden destruction. Some rewards come with curses embedded inside them.
• Generational patterns and mindsets — inherited poverty mindsets, fear, dependency, deficit thinking, and dysfunctional work ethics pass from parent to child. What parents model as normal, children absorb as the pattern of life. These cycles do not break themselves.

The Source of True Breakthrough: Christ

Galatians 3:13: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." Christ has already redeemed from the curse. Not through effort, but through him.

Isaiah 65:21-23: "They shall build houses, and inhabit them... they shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them."

If there is a generational curse, there is also generational blessing. You can choose which pattern to claim and stand on. God's promise is specific: not only will you not labor in vain, your offspring with you will not either. This is a lineage promise.

I shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble, for I am the seed of the blessed of the Lord — and my children with me.

One encounter with Jesus can produce what years of struggling cannot. Peter said in Luke 5: "Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing." That sentence perfectly describes fruitless labor — sustained effort producing zero results. One instruction from Jesus changed empty nets into nets so full they began to break.

Isaac sowed during a famine — Genesis 26 — and reaped a hundredfold that same year. Fruitfulness is not controlled only by economic conditions. A person connected to God, sensitive to his instructions however unusual they seem, can produce results that transcend the circumstances everyone else is limited by.

Everything Joseph touched prospered — Genesis 39 — not because of location, but because God was with him. The blessing rested upon the man, not upon his surroundings.

What Eagles Know About Releasing the Next Generation

The eagle mother carries her eaglets on her back and flies to great heights, then flips to let them fall. Just before they hit the ground, she sweeps underneath and catches them. She does this repeatedly until the eaglets discover their wings and begin to fly. The father eagle creates a draft powerful enough to carry the young birds in the wind before they can flap their own wings — he makes their journey easier before they know they can fly alone.

What drafts are you creating for your children? Drafts of faithfulness? Generosity? Prayerfulness? Or drafts of neglect, impatience, and abandonment? Parents who model complaint, laziness, or entitlement are teaching children a pattern — and those children will live out exactly what was modeled.

When the young eagles refuse to leave the nest, the parents eventually scatter it entirely. There is nothing left to return to. The only way a new lineage begins is when the young go out and build their own. Sometimes love must be tough enough to push children into their own capacity.

Practical Keys to Breaking Fruitless Labor

1. Return to God's presence and guidance — pray, obey, and stay sensitive. Ask honestly: Am I building where God assigned me? Am I in the right relationship? Am I in the right environment? Human effort without divine backing will always fall short of what effort with divine backing produces.
2. Develop skill — Ecclesiastes 10:10: "If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength: but wisdom is profitable to direct." Sometimes the answer is not more force — it is sharpening. Be willing to learn. Go to school. Receive instruction from those who know. Skill matters alongside prayer.
3. Find alignment — where does grace, gifting, opportunity, burden, and impact intersect for you? Operating in alignment with God's purpose makes labor lighter. Operating outside purpose makes everything heavier.
4. Practice consistency — many breakthroughs are cumulative, not sudden. Galatians 6:9: "Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." Stay with it. Results that were built over time will not disappear in a week — and fruit that takes time to produce is fruit that holds.
5. Reject dishonest gain — never exchange integrity for speed. Never exchange character for money. Never exchange destiny for appetite. Shortcuts carry hidden costs that often don't appear until it is too late to undo them.
6. Speak against defeat cycles — Proverbs 18:21: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof." Stop confessing failure, impossibility, and limitation. Begin to declare what God has written over your life and your lineage.

Psalm 90:17: "And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it."

I will not labor without reward. The works of my hands shall prosper. I reject leaking baskets and empty harvest. God will establish the work of my hands. My labor will produce fruit. My labor will produce influence. My labor will produce provision. My labor will produce legacy — in the name of Jesus.