by Linzy Slayden
This is harvest time of the year. Most city slickers don’t have a clue about that sowing and reaping stuff. Neither did I until I was in the seventh grade when my family moved from the city to the country and I saw this truth firsthand. Nowhere are the seasons more apparent than on a farm. There is winter when the snow covers the hard, hard ground and everything looks dead. Spring comes and the sun shines and the ground is tilled. The farmer goes out and sows seed into the field. But the work is not done yet. The summer time comes and the sun beats down and the work gets hard and the weeding and watering must be done. Then, if the farmer has been diligent, when the fall comes — it’s harvest time! The fields are full and ripe with what he’s planted. There is a harvest.
The one thing that interested the Lord Jesus more than anything else was the harvest. He calls Himself in Matthew 9:38, “the Lord of the harvest.” It was the harvest that moved him to leave the glory of heaven. The harvest is also the reason we are here. He said in John 20:21, “As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.” Jesus Christ is still the Lord of the harvest, and He is still calling for laborers to join Him in sowing the gospel seed and reaping eternal souls for the glory of God.
Jesus said there was “a great harvest,” waiting to be gathered, ripe for the picking. The problem is not with the size of the harvest, the problem is with the lack of harvesters.
A little boy was asked to go somewhere by his dad. His little boy looked at him and said, “I ain’t going.” His dad said, “Son, you’re not supposed to use the word ‘ain’t’, that is not proper English.” He then proceeded to give his son an English lesson. He said, “Now listen carefully, first person singular — I am not going; second person singular —you are not going; third person singular — he is not going; first person plural — we are not going; second person plural — you are not going; third person plural — they are not going.” He said, “Now son, do you understand it?” His son said, “Yes sir, it looks like ain’t nobody going.”
God’s way involves people filled with His Holy Spirit. If eleven disciples on a mountain in Galilee were enough to launch the gospel to the ends of the earth, imagine what God can do with us in this century! The plan of God is for every person among the people of God to count for the advancement of the gospel. What if each of us were actually making disciples who were making disciples who were making disciples? It wouldn’t take long for the church of the living God, unleashed for the purpose of the living God, to touch the world for the living God. What a harvest that would be!