August 21, 2024

Matthew 9.38 (NIV)

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

God’s work is spiritual work . . . spiritual work is best advanced with spiritual weapons, the chief of which is prayer.*

According to the language experts, the literal meaning of Jesus’ words is that we should ask the Lord to “thrust out” workers into his harvest field. That has a more forceful and energetic ring than merely sending them. It sounds a bit random as well. To the human eye, sometimes God’s “sending” does not appear to be so orderly. From my home church, for instance, during a period of just a few months, we had members who were called to Japan, Cambodia, and Africa. Why there? Why them? They know they were called, but only God knows the “whys.”

Have you noticed that we don’t read that Jesus ever told his disciples to pray for lost souls? Instead, he told them to pray for laborers (and he told them to go be those laborers).* How many prayer requests have you heard for someone’s lost loved one? How many requests for workers in the field? Perhaps we need to change the focus of our prayers.

I believe there is a natural progression from praying for laborers to developing the willingness to be one.  Our willingness to serve may not result in a call to go away – after all, if we all got up and went, who would pay the bills? God hasn’t gifted us all the same or called us all to the same field; but whatever our gift or calling, Jesus asks us to pray for workers in his harvest fields.

Accept your current obligations as opportunities. See the fields that are white for harvest beginning at your home address.*