Today’s Scripture: Hebrews 11-13
We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. – Acts 13:32
I remember sitting along a river that flowed quietly through a missionary jungle base in South America. A man was telling me about the many opportunities all around his mission that they could not pursue because the laborers were few. It broke his heart. He was a man with a burden for the lost, but with an inadequate labor force to fully reap the harvest.
A few months later I was with two pastors in downtown London. They were surrounded by some of the most powerful corporations in the world, businesses with global influence. These men echoed the lament of the missionary in South America–a lack of laborers to reach out to the spiritually hungry people in these great corporations.
Jesus said, “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Matthew 9:38). This is also what the writer of Hebrews prayed: “May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (13:20-21).
God calls on us to co-labor with Him to fulfill the Great Commission through evangelism and teaching new Christians how to grow in faith. And He’s looking for people who will go to the fields early, work hard, and stay late because they are committed to Christ and to the task at hand. This kind of person cannot be produced by human endeavor alone. Will you make the need for spiritual laborers a matter of prayer today?
Prayer
Lord, I want to be a spiritual laborer for You. Show me where You’re working and how I can join You there. Amen.
To Ponder
The fields are ripe, the laborers are few; the solution begins with prayer.