Topic: Heart for the Harvest

Text: John 4: 34–35

John 4:34–35 come at the end of Jesus’ conversation with a Samaritan woman. The disciples returned having gone to buy food. She goes back into town to talk about who she had met. Jesus is having this conversation with the disciples. They’re saying, “Hey, we have bought the food you sent us to get, now you can eat. He says, “Oh, I’ve eaten. I have much better food than you’ve eaten. My food is to do the will of him who sent me, to finish his work. Basically, he was saying, what sustains me is obeying the father, accomplishing his will, doing the mission he sent me to do. Then he says, “Open your eyes and look. There’s so much work to do. There are so many people,” Who are in need of the grace and mercy of God, the living water that Jesus has come to offer.” So Jesus says, “This is food. This is sustenance. Giving your life, making this living water known to those who are thirsty.”

Just like Jesus told His disciples, we need the eyes of His people, the believers in Jesus, to be opened to see. The spiritual eyes need to be opened to see the vast areas that still need to hear the gospel. Some are close to us and some are far from us. Unless, our eyes are opened to see like Jesus saw and sees, our hearts will not yearn for what His heart yearns for. It is when we see that we will have burdened heart to do what he did.

The time for the harvest is now, not tomorrow or later. We need to develop the kind of heart that Jesus has. A heart for the harvest will not be deterred by hunger, possessions, other cares of this world and neither would it be at ease in Zion. It would forgo all to win a soul for the Kingdom. Open your eyes, the fields are ripe for harvest. There are people in need of salvation in Christ all around us right now.

Prayer:

• Pray that our hearts will be moved by what moves the Master’s heart.
• Pray that we may respond to the ripened harvest with obedience and the willingness to go.

Dr. David Umune

Zonal Chairman, NEMA Southeast & President, The Evangelizers’ Team Ministries International