“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 9:37-38 (NIV)
I just love the Fall Season. It is perhaps the best season of all, and I am so glad when it finally comes around every year. It brings with it fond memories of school days, football, homecomings, cool weather, and magnificent clear blue skies and autumn leaves in every hue. It also ushers in Halloween and Thanksgiving with pumpkins and cornucopias full of harvest fruits and vegetables. Harvest is a wondrous time of reaping the bounty of what we have sown.
There is also a bounty that God has sown. Jesus tells his disciples that “the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few” in Matthew. Imagine fields full of ripe fruits and vegetables just rotting and wasting away because there is no one willing to pick them. That is the analogy that Jesus uses for the people of this world. He came to die for the sins of every person so that we might all be saved and harvested from our sins and eternal damnation. But those of us who are saved by this knowledge will not go out and share in the harvest. Jesus says “even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘one sows and another reaps is true’” (John 4:36-37). We are not picking the fruit from the vines that God has sown.
Paul writes to the Galatians “let us not become wearing in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (6:9). We should be filled with excitement to work in the fields for Our Father in Heaven. He has planted a great harvest which we are joyous to help reap. May we not grow weary but be ever knowing that God is good and He wants everyone to come unto Him so that we may increase our inheritance in His kingdom forever. As David writes, so we should also believe “the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance” (Psalm 16:8).
Fall is also my favorite season. It's so refreshing after our hot summers. Right now, I'm in Missouri visiting my son and his family. (My son has been sick. Please remember him in prayer.) It is so cool here. It's actually about 40 degrees right now.
ReplyDeleteYour posts always touch my spirit. What a great analogy you used - fruit going to waste.
Many years ago, my husband and I visited a tomato farm, where all the fruit was lying on the ground, going to waste. It is a picture I will never forget, and now I know why. The Lord will always speak to me through that picture since I read your analogy.
Thank you for sharing. God bless you, Ramona. I appreciate you.
Love,
Andrea