Matthew 9:37-38 (ESV)
[37] Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the
laborers are few; [38] therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the
harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
Is
it fascinating to me that Jesus didn’t say that we should pray for a bountiful
harvest. Not that praying for a bountiful harvest is wrong, but Jesus was more
concerned about laborers. When he saw the diseased, the blind, the demon-possessed,
he didn’t see uncleanness. He saw a plentiful harvest. The fields were ripe and
ready to be harvested. It was workers that were needed.
We
watched the movie Jesus Revolution the other day, and were reminded of the
powerful work God did across the country and around the globe starting with the
most unusual people. He used hippies, drop-outs, drug users, but he cleaned
them up and transformed their lives. Many in “respectable” churches rejected what
God was doing, yet there are pastors in place today, ministries in existence
today, permanently transformed lives today because of that movement. Were there
abuses? Yes. Was there misunderstanding? Yes. Yet God changed the lives of the
very people that the church thought unreachable. That is not dissimilar to what
Jesus was doing in Matthew 9. He was ministering to the most unlikely people.
He saw a ripe harvest and he said to pray for workers.
Today
there is not a lack of truth, nor is there a lack of people open to the truth.
But there is a lack of Christians willing to reach out and minister to the
broken, the unexpected, the unclean. Pray that God would raise up workers, and
as you pray, consider whether you might just be the one he is raising up. Lift
up your eyes and see a harvest ready in the most unlikely places.
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