Month of Missions Devotional- Day Two, Friday, February 2

Topic: Faithfully Seeking the Lost

Text: For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).

Jesus Christ came with the purpose of seeking those who are lost. Christ taught the importance of seeking after the one who is lost. We will have to seek out the lost intentionally because they’re not likely to come to us so we must go to them. Since the fall of Adam, all mankind is in a lost and fallen state. In that regard, Jesus told His disciples to go into all the world and to make disciples of all nations but also to teach them to observe what He taught them (Mathew 28:19-20). This is part of the seeking and saving of the lost. The passion of Jesus Christ for the lost was what He wanted to teach His followers and His disciples, and it’s what they wanted to teach us. That we must remain faithful to the end in our passion for the lost.

God, in his infinite mercies, has other amazing ways of witnessing to the lost. Darlene Sala in her Series: “Encouraging Words; Seeking the Lost”, told the story of a professional diver, who while diving one day on the bottom of the ocean, noticed an oyster with a piece of paper in its mouth. He detached the oyster and held the piece of paper close to the goggles of his headgear. He found that it was a Gospel tract telling how to become a Christian, and calling on whoever reads it to repent of his sins.

The diver was amazed and said, “I cannot hold out against God any longer, since He has gone to so much trouble to track me down.” He repented of his sins at the bottom of the ocean and placed His faith in Jesus Christ. God used an oyster to change the diver’s life. God is glorified when a lost person is found and saved from eternal condemnation.

Quite often, people cannot reach out to God by their own efforts. God often reaches out to us. The story of Zacchaeus in the gospel of Luke 19 is a good example of this. Zacchaeus was determined to see Jesus, and would let nothing stop him. But he was so short that he could not get to see Jesus among the crowd, so he ran ahead and climbed the sycamore tree beside the road, to be able to watch Jesus from there (Luke 19:3-4). For Zacchaeus to mix with the crowd at all was a courageous act; for many people would have taken an opportunity to kick, or push the little tax-collector who had for long rip them off.

The action of Zacchaeus is a picture of human effort to reach God. The sycamore tree typifies the human way to reach out to God. But being short and inadequate, human effort cannot reach God’s standard to find & reach him. Only the tree of Jesus, which is the cross, can bridge the gap between God and man. The connection that has been lost due to sin has been reconnected through Jesus Christ, the mediator between God and man.

When Jesus was passing by the tree, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! For I must be a guest in your home today” (Luke 19:5). Jesus looked out for Zacchaeus more than Zacchaeus was looking out for Jesus! Jesus is always looking for lost sinners more than lost sinners look for Jesus. That is His passion. He wants to enter into every person’s heart and life. All believers of Christ should have this kind of compassion for the lost. Unfortunately, very few believers are actively sharing their faith. We must get back to the heart of Christ’s mission and passion so that the Church can be the voice of truth to those who are lost. God makes it clear through His word that He wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1Timothy 2:4).

Prayer:

  • There is nobody who is out of salvation’s reach. Pray for the lost in faith and hope (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
  • Ask the Lord to remove every veil covering the eyes of the lost.
  • Ask the Lord to place more believers on the path of the unreached who will boldly proclaim the truth and faithfully walk in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.

Andrew Gwaivangmin

Executive Secretary, NEMA

Month of Missions Devotional – Day One, Thursday, February 1

Topic: Heart for the Harvest

Text: John 4:34

We all need a heart for the harvest like our Lord and Master. His goal was to finish the harvest. The harvest became His meat (food, strength and nourishment). For us to have and maintain a heart for the harvest like our Lord and master we must:

  1. Own the harvest: Owners take serious responsibility. Owners would do anything, pay any price, go to any length to get the harvest home. I know it because I practice farming. Harvest time is a crucial time for the farmer. You can’t ignore the harvest. You can’t suspend the harvest. It is a top priority. Food and pleasure may wait but not the harvest. Our hearts cannot be on the harvest unless we see the harvest as our own.
  2. We need to remind ourselves the extent of the harvest. It doesn’t matter how much and far we have reached, the question is what is left undone.
  3. We need to know the enemies of the harvest: In the harvest of crops and grains, we have the wind, fire, late rains and thieves as enemies. Other faiths and occult groups are competing for the same harvest fields we are sent to. On the other hand, wars, terrorism and crises are killing and destroying lives and properties in the fields Christ has commanded us to go to.
  4. Reward is coming: The Master says in Rev. 22:12 “Behold I come quickly; and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be.” Our labour shall be rewarded by the master Himself. We live to work and we must work now while the sun shines.

Prayer:

  • Ask the Lord to make you own the harvest.

Rev David Kanda

National Chairman, NEMA & General Overseer, Harvesters for Christ Ministries, Kaduna

NEMA Month of Missions 2024 – Heart for the Harvest

“Jesus saith unto them His disciples: my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work.” (John 4:34, KJV)

Every February, we observe the Month of Missions. It’s a special month where we celebrate the doings of the Lord among the nations through the obedience of the Church and Mission agencies. This year, our theme is “Heart for the Harvest” (John 4:34).

As always, NEMA has produced a special edition of Devotions and Prayer Bulletin. We encourage your church and or congregation to use this to reflect and pray at individual, family altars, week-day congregational prayers and most especially, at Sunday services. We also request your congregation to set aside a Sunday in the month of February, 2024, most preferably, the last Sunday, 25th, to pray for and support with finances, the task of reaching the unreached.

An astounding 41.9%, which is about 3.3 billion of the more than 8.0 billion people on Earth, are considered unreached or least reached (Joshua Project, 2023). That means that about 2 out of 5 people in our world have never heard of the gospel of Jesus Christ. More than 7,000 people groups are unreached and mostly live in the 10/40 Window. This explains our focus of Vision 5015 Plus!

Jesus’ work included preaching the good news of the kingdom of God, healing the sick, casting out demons, and ultimately dying on the cross for the sins of humanity. By saying that his food was to do the will of God and finish his work, Jesus was emphasizing the importance of fulfilling his divine mission and completing the task that God had given him.

The good news of the Kingdom of God is a central theme of Jesus’ teachings. The kingdom of God refers to the rule of God in the hearts of people and the world. Jesus came to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God, which meant that God’s reign was breaking into the world in a new way. The good news of the Kingdom of God is that through faith in Jesus Christ, we can enter a new relationship with God and experience forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

God’s heart for the nations is clear throughout the Bible. When God promises to bless all the nations of the earth through Abraham’s family, this promise is fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus. From long ago, God was working to provide salvation for the nations. The work of Christ on the cross is effective for Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free. Christ died for the unreached. We have a heart for the unreached because Christ died for people of every nation.

Increasingly, we now have people from unreached people groups who go to the city for various reasons. Instead of going to them in the rural villages, they have come to us. They have come to our cities, and we can now reach them in these cities. In doing that we can impact multiple unreached people groups in the urban contexts.

Science, technology, time and population growth have sped up the emergence of this new urbanised era that we are experiencing today. More than half the world live in cities, and the percentage is growing rapidly. But just 100 cities today account for over 30% of the world’s economy, and almost all of its innovation. As great commissioners we must take this urban growth seriously.

We must understand that the population in rural areas is dwindling as many now move to expanding cities in search of a better livelihood among other reasons. And so, we must change our thinking and approach as we intentionally focus on reaching unreached people groups in the cities. The goal is to see whole people groups reached with the gospel everywhere, ensuring no place or person is left.

As we focus on reaching unreached people groups, I pray that God will cause our heart to be increasingly burdened and willing to do the needful until the task is completed.

Download the Month of Missions Devotional and Prayer Alert, February – May 2024 here