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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching
in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every
disease and sickness. When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because
they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."
Matthew 9:35-38
Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."
Matthew 9:35-38
After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent
them two by two ahead of Him to every town and place where He was about to go. He
told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of
the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.
Luke 10:1-2
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
How do you see the world we live in today?
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
How do you see the world we live in today?
Do you look at it with concern as more and more people
choose to live without the Lord in their life?
I know I do. In fact, it’s the motivation toward writing nearly every day for the past ten plus years from the word of God. For we simply must never tire in our efforts to carry out Jesus’ call to make disciples, just not in our neighborhood or our community or the nation we reside in. Rather, Jesus called us to make disciples of all nations which means we are to do His work in helping all people find their way to salvation.
I know I do. In fact, it’s the motivation toward writing nearly every day for the past ten plus years from the word of God. For we simply must never tire in our efforts to carry out Jesus’ call to make disciples, just not in our neighborhood or our community or the nation we reside in. Rather, Jesus called us to make disciples of all nations which means we are to do His work in helping all people find their way to salvation.
Indeed, there is a lot of work to be done with a lot of
unsaved people occupying an immense world across a lot of territory.
You see, we only see our world as one big harvest field filled with countless unsaved people when we look at things in the right perspective and consider the world’s population as a whole. And when we get that view, then we can begin to grasp the gravity of the situation at hand and the associated urgency in regard to proclaiming the good news of Jesus wherever we are to whoever we meet.
Just like Jesus did.
Let’s look again at our passage for today from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke as we find Jesus sensing urgency Himself more than 2,000 years ago:
You see, we only see our world as one big harvest field filled with countless unsaved people when we look at things in the right perspective and consider the world’s population as a whole. And when we get that view, then we can begin to grasp the gravity of the situation at hand and the associated urgency in regard to proclaiming the good news of Jesus wherever we are to whoever we meet.
Just like Jesus did.
Let’s look again at our passage for today from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke as we find Jesus sensing urgency Himself more than 2,000 years ago:
Jesus went through
all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good
news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When He saw the
crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless,
like sheep without a shepherd.
Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."
Matthew 9:35-38
Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."
Matthew 9:35-38
After this the
Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of Him to
every town and place where He was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is
plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to
send out workers into his harvest field.
Luke 10:1-2
Here we find Jesus going “through all the towns and
villages” where He taught in “synagogues, preaching the good news of the
kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.” We know Jesus rarely stayed
put; His ministry was always defined by proactiveness not complacency as He
made it a priority to seek and care for those who needed help. And like today,
there was no shortage of people who fit that category of being in need.
Yes, Jesus was always busy in the harvest fields making a difference but we should note that He didn’t do what He did out of some sense of duty, like He felt obligated and compelled to do something even though His heart wasn’t in it. No, Jesus did what He did because He loved people, even when they didn’t love Him, and wished that none of them might be lost but rather found.
Indeed, as we look at the scriptures again, we find Jesus seeing the crowds of people and having “compassion on them”. He viewed them as “harassed and helpless”, “like sheep without a shepherd”. The harvest field was full of lost people, lost like a sheep would be without a shepherd.
Yes, Jesus was always busy in the harvest fields making a difference but we should note that He didn’t do what He did out of some sense of duty, like He felt obligated and compelled to do something even though His heart wasn’t in it. No, Jesus did what He did because He loved people, even when they didn’t love Him, and wished that none of them might be lost but rather found.
Indeed, as we look at the scriptures again, we find Jesus seeing the crowds of people and having “compassion on them”. He viewed them as “harassed and helpless”, “like sheep without a shepherd”. The harvest field was full of lost people, lost like a sheep would be without a shepherd.
Friends, this is where anyone finds themselves without
Christ in their lives, living like helpless sheep as they are vulnerable to harassment
or attack by an enemy (in this case, Satan) Satan who wants nothing more than
to take sheep (person) away from the Great Shepherd (the Lord Jesus, see John
10).
Let’s revisit thinking about how many people there are in the world who don’t know Jesus and the salvation He brings. The astronomical number is both frightening and sad at the same time (in 2008, CBN estimated that two-thirds of the world had not accepted Jesus as Savior). This truth should motivate and drive us to the same sense of urgency that Jesus had in carrying out the Great Commission He gave us (Matthew 28:18-20), the Great Commission that calls us to “go” and “make disciples”, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” and “teaching them to obey all He commanded”. These are all action words and action is what Jesus wanted (and still wants) as we finish with His words to the disciples in the first century AD:
Let’s revisit thinking about how many people there are in the world who don’t know Jesus and the salvation He brings. The astronomical number is both frightening and sad at the same time (in 2008, CBN estimated that two-thirds of the world had not accepted Jesus as Savior). This truth should motivate and drive us to the same sense of urgency that Jesus had in carrying out the Great Commission He gave us (Matthew 28:18-20), the Great Commission that calls us to “go” and “make disciples”, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” and “teaching them to obey all He commanded”. These are all action words and action is what Jesus wanted (and still wants) as we finish with His words to the disciples in the first century AD:
“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask
the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest
field."
Jesus needs workers to attend to the sheep without a shepherd living in the harvest field of this world.
Jesus needs workers to attend to the sheep without a shepherd living in the harvest field of this world.
It’s time for all Christians to get to work to that end.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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