Pray Ye The Lord Of Harvest
Key Verse: Matthew 9: 38, “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest.” ( KJV)
HE most recent pandemic that hit the world has shown that all over the world, people are now hungry for the gospel. An estimated 3.13 billion individuals live in the least evangelised nations in the world. The harvest is enormous but the labourers are few, pray ye the Lord of harvest.
Jesus commanded His disciples to go into the world and preach the gospel ( Matthew 28: 19; Mark 16: 15; Acts 1: 8) but in Matthew 9: 35, Jesus went through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing the sick people. Jesus said to His disciples “go” but Jesus Himself actually went. This can be referred to as “walking- the- talk.”
Jesus walked- the- talk. If you want to use the military vocabulary, Jesus was not an armchair general. Jesus was not satisfied to remain neither at the army headquarters nor at battalion
Theadquarters while His disciples went to the battle field, so you and I should not be satisfied for whatsoever reason to remain at our comfort zones and watch souls go to hell.
Jesus was in front, He led the pact and He set the example. Jesus went with three- pronged ministry: teaching, preaching and healing. Jesus healed the paralytic; called Matthew, the tax collector into ministry; raised Jairus’ daughter back to life; healed the woman with the issue of blood; ministered healing to the two blind men and ministered deliverance to demon possessed man ( Matthew 9: 1- 35). Jesus’ fame spread abroad and multitudes were following Him. In Matthew 11: 29 Jesus made a general statement and said, ‘ take my yoke upon you and learn from me.’ In my first pastorate, we had to be in front, we had to lead the pact, we had to set example of evangelism, organise the church and divide the church into groups or sometimes lead the whole church out either early in the morning or in other church evangelism in the evening.
Jesus introduced “but” in verse 36 by the Holy Spirit through the author of Matthew chapter 9, which put into contrast what, was said before. The Bible says, “but when he saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.” Jesus was still very far from being satisfied in spite of the greatness of His ministry, mass conversion of souls and innumerable ministrations of miracles. Why should we be satisfied, when Jesus is far from being satisfied? I think you have something to learn from Jesus today. What was the cause of Jesus dissatisfaction? Jesus looked beyond the crowd and took a deep look into the spiritual state of the multitude of people who gathered to listen to Him. He saw a multitude of people been lost in their sins and going to hell. We are not enough for the tasks before us. Why doesn’t the Lord of harvest just go ahead and do the calling by Himself without necessarily requiring us to pray to Him? No, He wants to partner with us. When we call on Him in prayer, He will derive joy and satisfaction from answering our prayer by sending labourers to the harvest field so that souls will be snatched from hell into the kingdom of god. As we take a deep look into our nation, states, local governments, communities, towns and villages, may we see as Jesus saw, may we have compassion as Jesus had and may we pray to the Lord of harvest that He send labourers to the field for the great harvest of souls.
Today’s Nugget: Jesus walked- the- talk Prayer: Lord prepare and send more labourers