Month: November 2020

“Freely you have received, freely give.”

It was God’s work to bring us into His Kingdom. We are the direct result of the work of, “him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” So none of us can say we were born in His Kingdom. Rather, we were born in sin. Rather, all we can say is that at some point – as we were being raised in sin or while we were living out our own sin – the Gospel was preached to us as the Father drew us, and we became sons of the Most High.

That was all the work of Jesus Christ by the Spirit of God. Nothing we once did or were doing or even ever will do can qualify us for His presence. As Isaiah once said, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” So preaches Paul in the book of Romans, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Indeed, humankind’s sinful bent is the ‘common knowledge’ of the Scripture. It is a prevailing motif throughout the Bible whenever people are mentioned.

This is something every follower of God knows, both from reading His Word and personal experience. We are saved not of ourselves, but of God and by the preaching of His Word. None of us did anything to deserve the blessing of God or His Kingdom.

In light of those facts, one would think that it could not even enter the human mind to think that one particular people group was more deserving than another. Yet it is not uncommon to find self-identifying Christians who actively despise other people groups! Even a casual poll among the faithful of any given church reveals some who look down on secularists, and/or Muslims, and/or homosexuals, and/or people of the opposing political party. It is bizarre to think that someone who was spiritually dead can be raised to spiritual life by grace, and then complain that others who are spiritually dead are somehow less worthy to be likewise raised by that same grace. People who do such things fail to see how the hypocrisy and selfishness of such hatred is not compatible with new life in Christ. The Gospel is for all and is meant to be preached to all, just as Christ will be one day seen by all on His glorious return, “’And all mankind will see God’s salvation.’”

Likewise, neither are the works of God in healing and restoration to be restricted. Jesus commanded His disciples, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” From that we can gain that wherever the Gospel goes, so also must go the work of God through the servants of God by the gifts of God and the power of God. Not that everyone who is saved experiences a miracle in this way, but that everyone who is saved can experience the reality of God (either directly in themselves, or indirectly in someone they know).

We must understand this. There is no demarcation point; the blessing of healing and deliverance is not only for those already in the church, but for all flesh. Like the preaching of the Gospel, it is a witness of God’s love for the lost. Freely given to us, that we might freely give it to others. For it is when they see the kindness of God to them that they can be convicted by the Spirit and repent.

In these things let us occupy ourselves, without giving offence, and let us not do anything with partiality or for the shaming of others, but let us love the poor as the servants of God.

Clement of Rome

APPLICATION: Intentionality

How will you bring the free blessing  those beyond your normal circle of influence today? 

Humankind is made in God’s image, but that does not mean we are made  with  anywhere even close to His capacity to think or act. In fact, God Himself testifies, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Amen. 

Nevertheless, we must try to understand God’s will for us and how to advance His Kingdom, and we work though that process with our own limited thinking. Inevitably, that leads to some level of confusion, because what God instructs us to do is far beyond what we can perceive is even possible. He is not restricted to only viewing the present, or what we are capable of now and of ourselves. He sees the whole of time all at once, including we will be capable of eventually, and what we can do with His Spirit working powerfully working through us. 

An example of this is Jesus’ simple and straightforward charge to His disciples; “As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” 

On first hearing His charge, one is prone to think it was a misguided joke. Thinking linearly, we see what He is asking the disciples to do as far beyond what is reasonable. For though one might be able to travel, and though one might be able to preach, how can any mere mortal – without medical training and ample supply of remedies – heal the sick? How is it not ridiculous to tell someone to raise dead? How can God expect that a mere man can clease another from leprosy? How could He ask flesh to drive out that which is obviously stronger than any flesh? With a keen knowledge of our own human limitation, we immediately disqualify ourselves from participation in what He instructs. 

All too often we conclude that He must’ve been exaggerating. Or perhaps it was misinterpreted – maybe He meant, “Those who go should preach, and sometimes the occasional gift of the supernatural may occur. Do the work of charity.” But Jesus’ command is not meant to be taken lightheartedly, or to be questioned as unreasonable. As all that Jesus said, it is not limited by occasion of time or place, so it is not limited to those who work for charities, or even limited to the apostles or the apostolic age!

Every disciple is called to make other disciples. Every disciple is given the Holy Spirit and the authority of Jesus Christ. We are all meant to be filled with His Spirit and we are all blessed of God with His peace, His presence and His power, and all for that very reason. Therefore, anyone who can describe themselves as having the authority of Christ by the Spirit of Christ is at least as qualified to do the work of fulfilling the mission of God.

If it wasn’t for that fact, we would have seen the Church of Jesus Christ dwindle down and die shortly after the death of the apostles, and the meaning and fulfillment of the Gospel with it. Thank God, that did not happen. We ourselves are the evidence that Jesus’ charge is still valid, and still the primary work of His church! 

Your religious life is every day to be a proof that God works impossibilities; your religious life is to be a series of impossibilities made possible and actual by God’s almighty power.

Andrew Murray

APPLICATION: Intentionality

When did you last attempt the impossible at His Word? Are you ready if He calls you to that today?

One might think that after you have been established where you are sent, and after you arrive where you are going, and after you have earned some credibility among the people you are sent to – that then and only then can you effectively preach the Gospel. But Jesus does not teach that. That is human wisdom, not divine wisdom. Jesus’ instruction is actually much simpler and much easier to follow, “As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’”  

Jesus says, ”As you go.” Meaning, “As you are on your way.” As you begin the journey. As you are on the journey. As you are almost done the journey. All along the way, you are to preach the Good News that God’s Kingdom is not far from anyone. It is as close as repentance. It is right there, even with you that very day, as you preach it. For this is not your own Gospel, it is Jesus’ Gospel. It is the divine message. The Good News that John the Baptist preached. It is the grace of God to all of us. That God forgives, and we can yet find restoration to our true purpose as children of God! It starts with recognizing how close His Kingdom really is, and recognizing that we have a call to reach for it – to actually repent and so enter His Kingdom. 

That the Gospel is to be preached at all times and at all places is paramount. It is the first thing Jesus tells his discipleship group to do. It becomes the primary charge of every disciple and of every minister of the Gospel. The value and importance of that far outweighs every other thing we can do. Of course, one cannot say that to devalue ministry to others in addition to preaching the Gospel. Ministry is a wonderful thing. There is an inherent value in healing others. Not merely because they become grateful, but because it brings hope. It brings hope to them, and to those who love them. But what good is healing if the healed have no internal peace with God? It is a wonderful miracle if the dead are raised, but what profit is there in raising the dead if those who believe because of it do not believe on the God who does the miracle to start with? It is a terrific thing to cleanse lepers from sickness, to remove both the disease and the stigma that another suffers under. But what value is there in cleansing lepers or even in driving out demons, if those rescued from bondage to decay and the demonic wind up dying in their sins later? 

We must give priority to the preaching of the Gospel. This is not just the call of the apostle. It is the call of every disciple. As the Word exhorts us, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” 

So it is – hear the charge from Jesus, “As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’” Know the charge from His Word! “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.”

Ministry is a necessary support tool. It opens doors and holds them open so the message can be heard. But it is not and cannot be a replacement for Gospel proclamation. 

The church cannot possibly exist without preaching the Word. Preaching has power like nothing else the church has or does. Moreover, preaching reaches more people than anything else the preacher can do, whether it is teaching, visiting, administrating, or counseling.

Stephen Olford

APPLICATION: Intentionality

Are you where you need to be in the balance between speaking for Him and ministering for Him? 

One of the reasons Matthew is keen to show Jesus as the fulfillment of Jewish prophetic expectation is that God’s work always begins with God’s people. As Paul would later write, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” Paul understood that God’s plan starts with God’s people – always has and always will. That includes salvation from the human condition of sin. 

In Christ’s time then, the solution to humankind’s sin problem had to start with the Jewish people – the people group that God called out from Babel to carry His Name across the earth. Not that God was playing favourites, or would restrict His plans to that one nation. Matthew and Paul both understood that though salvation would be first brought to the Jews, it could not remain there. It must go beyond them to the Gentiles (non-Jewish) world, just as judgment would start with the Jews and go beyond them to the non-Jewish world. As Paul writes, “There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism.”

Knowing those facts is key to reading Jesus’ sending of the newly commissioned apostles. Without it, we find our present culture’s aversion to discrimination informing the reading of Scripture. But our culture should never inform Scripture. Scripture must inform culture. So when we read of Jesus’ instructions, let us not jump to the conclusion that God is racist or discriminatory. Rather, God is orderly. He starts with His own household first.

“These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.”” 

One commentator writes, “Matthew is here preparing, from the perspective of Jewish concerns, for the affirmation of Gentile mission to which he will reach in 28:19. Jesus comes as, in the first instance, a thoroughly Jewish and restrictedly Jewish messiah… The separate mention of the Samaritans has no independent significance: these people considered to be of doubtful Israelite extraction are introduced only as a way of insisting with considerable tightness of definition on a restriction of mission to ethnic Israel. In this respect Jesus is presented as having impeccable Jewish credentials.”

In other words, that is not just important to Matthew’s primarily Jewish readers. It is of value to us all that Jesus is rightly seen as one who upheld the Law, honored the Abrahamic covenant and fulfilled Scripture. 

God, who is above the culture of all people groups, works through the culture of all people groups. Not only to save, but to restore. Not only the people, but the very cultures that they identify with; First that of the Jew. Then that of the Gentile! 

Amen. 

All the blessings of Israel are summed up in Christ.

William Wordsworth

APPLICATION: Thankfulness

Let us thank God that the blessing of God came to Israel first. For in His doing so, Israel is made into an example for the rest of humankind. 

Knowing that apostleship is a role that is ordained by God, and knowing that Jesus only called the twelve apostles after an entire night of prayer, one might think that such a call is both a high honor and a particular blessing. It is, but that is not the point. Jesus has already blessed them with Himself. He has poured into their lives day by day. He has walked with them, shared plates with them and slept under the same roof as them. For some time now, actually. He has shown them what it is to heal, what it is to deliver from the demonic, what it is to preach, what it is to perform miracles. He has blessed them abundantly, far more than any man could reasonably ask. So now comes the point of all that blessing. After listing the apostles, Matthew immediately notes, “These twelve Jesus sent out…”  

Jesus was seeking to expand the ministry. The lost tribes of Israel were too many for one man to reach, no matter how effective the ministry was. Besides, it is not that Jesus wanted to reach the lost merely by teaching – in that case He could have created mass printing in His day. It is not that Jesus wanted to reach them merely by preaching – in that case He could have created television in His day. No, He wanted lost people to see His care and compassion the eyes of those He sent. He wanted lost people to know His touch through the hands of those He sent. He wanted lost people to know His love for them by going to where they were instead of expecting them to come to Him. 

It is astonishing, that though He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and has all authority to send people to go where He might not be willing to go, or do what He might not want to do – Jesus only commissions His disciples after modeling what going actually entailed. He doesn’t ask anyone to do what He Himself did not actually do. He had been traveling with the disciples. He had been walking along dusty roads in the middle-eastern heat, eating meager rations and getting thirsty. He had been living in crowded conditions. He had eaten food off the same plate as the poor and lowly. He had washed His feet with the same dirty water, and wiped them dry with the same dirty rag. Such was His love for the lost. Such was His care for those who He knew would call out for His crucifixion when the mob turned. Such was His compassion for those He understood were dead in their trespasses and sins, and entirely unable to help themselves in any way, manner, shape, form or function. 

It is for these same reasons that Jesus stlll sends people out today. Of course, today we have radio, and television, and all sorts of means of mass-communication through satellite and web-based applications. But for the lost, even if and when we get mass-holographic communication, it still won’t be the same as seeing the Gospel in action through someone who actually comes to them with the Good News. 

Matthew writes about Jesus’ commission of the twelve. Later, John will write Jesus’ words of commission to all of us, “Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” He sends us the way the Father sent Him: in human form. With human voices. With human touch, human compassion and human limitation. All this is by God’s design, that in the same form we were lost we might be recovered.

Amen. 

Jesus was sent by God the Father and was God’s best missionary, the true model for Christian mission.

Samuel Escobar

APPLICATION: Intentionality

He came for us only after setting aside His divine form and glory. Let us go for others with confidence in the same manner.  

“These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.”

The Scriptures are full of lists of people. The lists differ, from genealogical records and tribe membership to the order of kings or inclusion in a particular group (as in David’s mighty men, or those Paul is thanking at the end of his epistles). Lists can be found in most books of the Bible, and each of those lists are included in God’s Word under divine prerogative. That means they are purposeful. For instance, we know that the genealogical record of Christ’s family line ties Him to David and the tribe of Judah. Knowing that grows our faith as we understand how Christ fulfilled prophesy. The lists of Scripture are purposeful and meaningful.

That purpose and meaning differs from list to list as the purpose and meaning of each book of Scripture differs. So it is not a surprise to us to see the list of apostles that Matthew provides here is not in chronological order. Matthew is writing with a largely Jewish readership in mind. While John details how Andrew came to know Christ before Simon Peter in his Gospel, and the Gospel of Luke walks us through the mechanics of Jesus formally calling both Simon and Andrew while they worked in the fishing boat, Matthew lists the names in a particular order, and for a particular reason.

He notes that first is Simon Peter. Matthew uses virtually the identical wording from 4:18, “Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew.” He also uses identical wording from 4:21, where he had listed, “James son of Zebedee and his brother John.” The Gospel writer had also previously identified himself (Matthew) as a tax collector (9:9), even though by the point of writing it is obvious that Matthew was no longer working in that trade. He lists Judas last, explicitly calling him out as a traitor to Jesus. Matthew wants us to know that God knows our humble beginnings. He also wants us to know that calling super-cedes our beginnings, and that what we do with our calling matters.

Everyone who knows Christ is on God’s list. We know this because the Revelation also notes that on the judgment day, “if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire,” and Jesus said, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” Nevertheless, the fact that we are on God’s list does not mean we equal in reward. What some do with their lives for Christ is clearly and obviously more than what others do with their lives for Christ. Although we all stand before Him as sinners saved by grace, the manner in which we reflect Him and His glory matters.

John Nollard wrote, “The listing of the twelve names clearly points to a unique role, but for the most part Matthew labours to present the Twelve as patterning something which belongs more broadly to Christian identity and role.” That unique role, and the pattern Matthew is hinting at, is the ultimate identity that Christ assigns to His people. It is an identity rooted in Him, filled with meaning and purpose, flushed with blessing and to God’s very great glory. As John will later write in his Revelation, “The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”

The kingdom of God topples our cherished priorities and demands of disciples new ones. It takes from those who follow Jesus things they would keep, and gives to them things they could not imagine.

James Edwards

APPLICATION: Intentionality

Thank God that He wrote your name in His book of Life with the blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Knowing He did that for you, what are you doing for Him? 

“He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out  evil spirits  and to heal every disease and sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles…”

The Scripture tells us that the impartation of authority Jesus gave the disciples in Matthew 10:1 had an immediate effect – even before the disciples begin to use that authority. In the very next verse, these same disciples are suddenly referred to as apostles. The difference in the two terms is significant.

A disciple is a student, an apprentice, pupil, or perhaps an adherent. A disciple is a committed follower. A follower who is following out of their own interest – disciples are driven forward entirely out of internal personal motivation. That is a tremendous thing, and a good deal more useful to the Lord’s work than simply another one of the admiring crowd who do little but look on and ‘like’ what Jesus does. A disciple does much more than a mere admirer does. A disciple is one who is actively seeking – by observation, listening and learning – to be like their teacher. We who study the Bible know that this is the goal of life – to be Christ-like. In fact, the very reason we read the Scripture and related material (like devotionals) is because we want to be more like the Jesus we are following! Being and becoming a faithful disciple is a high and noble calling.

Not only that, it is a calling that Jesus values. So much so that He will later mandate that His followers go and make disciples! It is something we value too, because disciples ‘belong’ to their master. Simply put, disciples of Christ are God’s redeemed and restored people. As Jesus later confessed of those God gave Him, “I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.” This is a tremendous truth – a surety of our salvation. Yet though offered to ‘whosoever will’, it is not accepted by many – a disciple is one of the few!

An apostle differs from a disciple in only three ways. Firstly, an apostle is a disciple who has been given authority to speak on behalf of THE authority. Not just to speak (virtually all disciples can communicate in some way, and all are called to speak truthfully), but to speak on behalf of the sender. And that is the second way they differ from a disciple. The word translated for us as “apostle” means a delegate or envoy or messenger. Matthew is telling us that from this point on the disciples have a whole new calling. They are no longer fishermen and tax collectors and the like who are following Jesus out of a deep sense of commitment. From here on, they are sent by Him to do His work. They are commissioned by Him, and that’s the third difference between disciples and apostles. Disciples are there by calling. Apostles are commissioned to be co-workers. Co-workers with Christ in His Kingdom. They have moved from being observers and learners to being fellow workers on behalf of Christ to the glory of the Father.

That has huge spiritual implications, because to be sent with His authority is an awesome gift. It is a calling by the divine to do the work of the divine with the power of the divine on account of the authority of the divine. What Christ did for the twelve (and what the Spirit does for all disciples from the day of Pentacost to our day following the Great Commission) grants us the ability to speak into the spiritual realm – even to command the spiritual realm from the realm of the physical! 

But that doesn’t mean they (or we) stop being disciples. An apostle is always a disciple first. An apostle may have authority and power and commissioning, but they are first and foremost His disciples, sent to do His will, speak His truth and cooperate with His Spirit. Apostles have an authority and power and commissioning, but they have no autonomy. And that is a powerful truth that every apostle (and every disciple) must remember. 

The power which Christ has vested in His Church is one that does not imply the exercise of force, but is concerned only with the understandings and convictions of men. To the Church Christ has given the power of the Spirit, the force of truth, the might of saving grace, the influence of spiritual authority; and in the administration of that power, through means of the ministry of the Word and the dispensation of ordinances, the Christian society claims no right over the persons and properties, but only appeals to the hearts and consciences of men.

James Bannerman

APPLICATION: Worship

Our authority and our power and our calling and commissioning and all that we ever truly did have, have now or will have, all come from Christ. Worship Him! 

Jesus has been modeling what ministry looks like to all who care to watch Him. He is doing that by preaching repentance, calling people to God’s Kingdom and traveling through the area demonstrating the reality of God’s Kingdom, “teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.” 

To this point, Jesus has been very public in His ministry. He taught extensively from the sermon mount and He healed people along the way. He freed people from demonic oppression and possession whenever He encountered them and whenever they were brought to Him. He even raised the dead!

All of this has been in close proximity to the disciples. He has been teaching them how to respond to sickness, to the demonic and to the myriad of human need in a broken world. He has modelled preaching and teaching and the operation of the spiritual gifts of  spiritual discernment and healing and as ways of revealing the Kingdom to others. Yet to this point He hasn’t asked His disciples to actually do anything more than simply follow. They have simply been observers. No doubt keen observers, because they left everything to follow this man Jesus. But they were just observers, watching and listening – drinking in all they could of the work and methods He was demonstrating. 

Called to follow, they were patiently waiting for their Master to call them to the work itself. Now that moment finally arrives, “He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.” 

Every Christian is supposed to do as Jesus did. But there are prerequisites to spiritual ministry. One cannot simply make a personal decision for Christ and immediately start to wage spiritual war. To overcome the demonic, one must have more than a wish to be able to do so. One must have more than words and more than a cloak and tunic. One must have understood something of the protocols of heaven. For without understanding of how, one will be lost for practicalities.

Jesus spent significant time with the disciples so they could see how He dealt with spirits of infirmity (in healing all manner of disease), how He dealt with spirits of incapacity (in healing all manner of handicap) and how He dealt with spirits of oppression (in casting out the demonic). They have seen and observed and learned much. One must also have the Word of God entrenched in your being. For without God’s Word, one cannot speak past the boundary of our physical world. Jesus has preached and taught so that the disciples might know the Word of God better than they have evener known it. They have heard Him from the sermon mount, along the way and in homes and synagogues throughout the area. He has prepared them well. 

Yet Jesus knew they must have even more than all that observation could grant. They must have spiritual authority. For without authority, they will be decimated by counterattack. It is the authority of Christ that gives a disciple the ability to not merely force a demon out of its chosen place, but to direct it away from those it would cause harm to. Spiritual ministry requires authority, and the disciple who purposes to act without first receiving an impartation of authority is headed to disaster! 

If Satan can defeat a Christian leader, he can cripple a whole ministry and discredit the cause of Christ.

Warren  Wiersbe

APPLICATION: Thankfulness

The same Christ who gave authority to the apostles still gives authority to His disciples today. Thank God for thee authority He has given you to be salt and light, bringing His peace, righteousness and joy in the Holy Spirit wherever you go. 

 Every missionary effort starts with prayer. It cannot start with programs and preaching,  or with carefully laid out plans. Those things are essential and needed, but the first and most important thing is always to pray. 

“Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

It is interesting that Jesus, looking with the crowds and being filled with Compassion by God’s Spirit, tells His disciples to pray. He could’ve just sent them. After all, He has divine prerogative. Besides, they are His followers. They would certainly do whatever He wanted them to do, and they’d do that of their own free will. They had made the choice to follow, so it would not have been out of place for Him to tell them to go and make disciples right then and there. But He does not. He tells them instead to pray. 

More than pray, He tells them to petition the Lord on account of two observations. Firstly that the harvest is ready, and secondly that there were not enough workers for it. Surely the Lord clearly knew that very well. Jesus knew it. His disciples may not have seen what He saw, but just before He told them to pray, He had just commented in their hearing, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” So we know that He both knew the time had come to begin the harvest, and He knew that there were not enough workers. Yet He asks the disciples to pray and tell God these same two facts. 

The late Armin Gesswein said, “Prayer is not everything, but everything is by prayer.”  What he meant is that everything in God’s Kingdom is by prayer. God – in His sovereignty – has chosen to only act in response to prayer. To then accomplish His will, we need to listen to Him prompt us as to what and how to best pray. That is true in every circumstance (to Armin’s point), but most especially true regarding the mission of God. 

After all, the mission of God is His mission. To save lost souls is not something we ourselves can do. We can go, and we can preach, and we can minister in His Name. But we cannot quicken the dead, and all those we reach with the Gospel are dead in their sins. We cannot reach into someone’s soul and liven it just enough to hear the Good News. And even if we could, we could not arrange all the circumstances of their lives so that right then just happens to be the right time for the message to be heard, so that they willfully respond to the Good News. That is all God’s work. It is not our work, but it is a work we participate in by His great grace to us. Praise His Name, when we do participate, He is faithful to do His work!

But we must first participate by praying. Praying about the harvest, and praying about the need for workers. When we do that, the Lord begins the greater work. The work of changing us into people who see the world as He sees it, and who see the opportunity as He sees it. We pray, and He changes our hearts. Then we begin to see what participation really is. And only then can we participate in that harvest. 

So we pray for the harvest, and we pray for workers of the harvest, so that we ourselves might be made into harvesters, and so that we might be partnered with the Lord of the harvest. 

Our prayer for them becomes the very tool God uses to change us, so that we might be used in His harvest. Amen.

Before we pray that God would fill us, I believe we ought to pray Him to empty us.

D.L. Moody

APPLICATION: Intentionality

We first pray for the harvest. Then we pray for harvesters. Then we find ourselves ready to join in the harvest. So…pray!

Jesus is going throughout Israel, teaching and preaching and healing. Moved with   compassion as He sees the crowds, He makes an observation, “Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”” 

Jesus’ analogy does not require a background in agriculture to understand. He is saying that there are many, many people who are ready to come into the Kingdom of God. He is also saying that there are only a few workers actually doing the Kingdom work of helping people enter His Kingdom. The ‘harvest’ of souls is plentiful, but the reapers of souls are few. 

One might think that with Jesus saying that over 2000 years ago, by our day it would be a very different circumstance. Sadly, that isn’t so. We may now have the technology to finally count how many different people groups there are (~16000), and we may now have communication tools like radio, television and the web, and travel technology like high speed trains and jets that previous generations could only dream of. Yet to our day only ~9000 of those people groups have a viable expression of Christ’s Kingdom. 

That means that ~7000 people groups do not have any expression of Jesus in their heart culture, and some of those 9000 groups have but a handful of viable expressions – even though people groups can number in the tens and hundreds of millions of souls. 

It is true that there is a great mission effort underway. But it is also true that there are increasing political and cultural roadblocks toward that effort, and a huge demonic effort by the enemy to lull Christians into complacency and consumerism. Most sadly, many born-again believers never even try to share their faith, and the very great majority will not make even modest efforts to cross cultural barriers for Jesus Christ. “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few,” is an observation that is just as true today as it was when Jesus said it to His handful of disciples over 2000 years ago. 

We must not forget that we are left on earth for a particular reason. That reason is to pursue God’s mission. The whole point of the Christian life is Christlikeness, but what is Christlikeness without participation in what Christ was and is doing? Jesus is on mission – working the ‘fields’ of people, reaping a great multitude of people from every nation and tribe and language and tongue. To this very day – by His Holy Spirit – Christ inspires and prompts, leads and directs people that they might be able, gifted and encouraged to join in the harvest effort. 

We do not cease being God’s own if we know Jesus but do not engage in His mission. The thief on the cross was still saved, after all. But we do miss the much deeper experience of Him if we do not enjoin His effort. We miss the joy of fruitfulness if we do not join His effort. We miss a greater experience of His peace, a greater experience of His power, a greater experience of His presence if we do not join His effort. Worse of all, we miss the eternal reward of having put our hand to the task for His glory. 

Perhaps in the here and now, that seems to matter little to us. It does not seem like we are losing out much by not participating in the mission of God. But if we bring our Lord little in the way of eternal glory, what should we expect that we get to share in with Him when we get to eternity?  

“According to thy faith be it unto thee” was Christ’s great law of healing and blessing in His earthly ministry. This was what He meant when He said “with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again.”

A.B. Simpson

APPLICATION: Intentionality

If the Lord has given to you a season of planting for His glory, then be about planting. If the Lord has given to you a season of watering for His glory, then be about watering. If the Lord has given you a season of harvest for His glory, then be about harvesting. And if the Lord has given you a season of cold winter suffering for His glory, then be about suffering.