Reaping the Harvest

Sunday we considered the words of Jesus in Matthew 9:35-38 as He talked about the fields being white unto the harvest. In other words, the many people needing to know about Christ.
Herein lies one of the great truths of the Christian faith: The harvest will never be reaped unless there are reapers to reap it. Jesus Christ needs men and women to bring in the harvest. Jesus' followers today need to see people as Jesus saw them - as plentiful, precious, perplexed and perishing.
What can we do?
a) We can take responsibility for our field. Think of all the people we contact everyday: family, friends, neighbors, work associates, the woman at the cleaners, the guy at the car wash, our hunting buddies, and our bunko group. That is our field. We are responsible for them. We will never have a sense of urgency and priority until we realize that we are responsible for them.
b) We can pray. When we begin to see people as Jesus saw them then we will pray for the harvest. We will pray for the salvation of the lost, for the church to be trainers of reapers, and for men and women to go into the harvest. We will pray for workers, laborers, servers, and givers. But we must do more than pray.
c) We can go. When we see people as Jesus saw them we will go into the harvest. We can't bring in the harvest without first going into the harvest. Our job is not to save the harvest - that's God's work. Our job is to tell people about the Lord of the harvest. The gospel begins with go. Without going there is no knowing. If we don't go, who will?
d) We can share our story. The great sin of the church is the sin of silence. People often say, "I'll let my life be my witness." (By the way, if you are saying that, how's that going? How many people have come to Christ because they watched your life?) We have taken the Great Commission and made it into the great omission. A subtle false teaching says we can be evangelical without being evangelistic. It has us believe that we go to church rather than we go into the world.
But, you say, there are so many people. The harvest is so vast. The needs are so overwhelming. What can I do?
Illustration: I am reminded of the old man, walking the beach at dawn, who noticed a young man ahead of him picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Catching up with the youth, he asked what he was doing. The answer was that the stranded starfish would die if left in the morning sun. "But the beach goes on for miles, and there are millions of starfish," countered the old man. "How can your effort make a difference?" The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and then threw it to safety in the waves. "It makes a difference to this one," he said.
Let's make a difference to those around us for eternity.