He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great but the workers are few. So pray to the lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him send more workers into his field.”
Observation
Jesus travels through the region teaching in the synagogues and preaching the Good News. He has compassion on the crowds, because they are confused and helpless.
Jesus tells His disciples that the harvest is huge, but there are so few workers. He tells them to pray for the Lord to send more workers into the harvest field.
Application
Jesus is motivated by compassion for those who are lost and helpless. He said there is a huge harvest, but not enough people to bring it in. This is a chronic problem even today, whether the harvest is fruit, grapes, cotton, or wheat.
Jesus tells us to pray for the Lord to send more workers into the harvest fields. He doesn’t tell us here to go and do the work of evangelism. He tells us to pray.
This reminds us that evangelism is a spiritual activity from start to finish. The conviction of sin and recognition of the Saviour only happen in the power of the Holy Spirit. We must pray for the holy connections where the right witness connects with the right listener.
Praying for the lord to send out workers is also an expression of readiness to be used by God. The prayer to send out workers implies a readiness to say “Send me.”
Prayer
Lord I am available to be used to bring people into your kingdom. Show me the one person you want me to talk to about you today. Amen.
Most Christians know the church was founded on the Day of Pentecost and many liturgical churches celebrate the day. But many ignore or overlook what happened that day—the Baptism in the Holy Spirit was given, including speaking in tongues.
There were many foreign visitors in Jerusalem that day and they heard their own languages. But this practice died down over the centuries until the modern Pentecostal movement that began with the Azusa Street revival of 1906 and which has swept the world.
Nevertheless, speaking in tongues has continued to be misunderstood and even controversial in many circles.
There are some genuine misconceptions about what speaking in tongues looks like and what purpose it serves the believers. No doubt Christians are divided about whether this gift has ceased or not, and there are even debates about when the proper time is to speak in a prayer language. Instead of debating with one another about tongues, I think it is best if we look at the four truths that are pertinent to this gift that I write about in my new book Spirit-Led Living in an Upside-Down World, which releases May 16.
1. Speaking in tongues is neither unbiblical nor outdated. Although not all Christians believe the same thing about the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and its accompanying evidence of speaking in “other tongues,” nothing in New Testament Scripture restricts or confines speaking in tongues to being only a first-century exercise.
The benefits of receiving a supernatural prayer language are profound. When we do not have the words to express our need, we can use our prayer language—a language understood by the Spirit, who speaks through us to the Father, and understood by the Father, who empowers the Spirit to work in our lives to give us victory.
2. Speaking in tongues is not a transcendental experience. There is really nothing weird about praying in a language we have never learned. As Jack Hayford puts it: “The ways of God in dealing with His redeemed children may be supernatural in the source of His operations, but they are not weird in their ways of working. To speak in tongues is not to resign the control of one’s mind or indulge one’s emotions to a point of extraction. The exercise of spiritual language does involve a conscious choice to allow God’s assistance to transcend our own linguistic limits, but it does not surrender to any order of a mystical, trance-like trip beyond oneself.”
3. Speaking in tongues is not a status symbol. There have been some abuses of tongues, including those who act is if they are spiritually superior to those who have never spoken in tongues.
The Bible doesn’t tell us tongues are to be used to impress other believers with the spiritual maturity of the one who speaks. The Bible tells us, “Now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, what shall I profit you, unless I speak to you by some revelation or knowledge or prophesying or doctrine?” In another place, the apostle Paul says, “So tongues are for a sign, not to believers, but to unbelievers.”
4. Speaking in tongues is not a substitute for spiritual growth. Using our prayer language and speaking in tongues will not cause us to grow spiritually even if we do it seven days a week and 24 hours a day.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit is available to all believers, not a select few. Just as we receive new life in the Son of God by a definite act of personal faith, so we receive supernatural power in the Spirit of God by an act of conscious faith.
Stephen E. Strangis the bestselling author of God and Donald Trump. The founder and CEO of Charisma Media, Strang was voted by Time magazine as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America. He has interviewed four U.S. presidents and has been featured on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CBN, Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, theDailyCaller.com and in many Christian outlets.
When we see paintings of Abraham offering up Isaac as a sacrifice, the art usually tells the same story—we see Isaac as a young boy, perhaps eleven years old or less. But according to Rabbinic Judaism, when Abraham offered up his son as a burnt offering, Isaac was not a little boy—he was thirty-seven years old! Kirt Schneider
Jesus asked them, “Do you believe I can make you see?” “Yes, Lord, “they told him, “we do.”
Observation
After raising the girl from the dead, two blind men follow Jesus asking Him to heal them.
Jesus asks them, “Do you believe I can make you see?” “Yes,” they reply.
And so Jesus tells them that their faith has healed them.
A demon possessed man who could not speak is brought to Jesus. Jesus casts out the demon and the man can speak. The crowd is amazed because nothing like this has ever happened before.
Application
All through the gospels, we see Jesus encouraging people to express faith before He heals them. He doesn’t do this for His own benefit, but to grow the faith of the person being healed as well as the faith of the people watching.
Part of the reason why we see so few miracles these days is that we have such little faith for healing. We need to practise faith and encourage it to grow .
Faith is like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes.
One way to do this is to pray for even small and trifling things Pray out loud and command that cold or pain to go in Jesus’ name. When we do this, we can start to believe for bigger diseases, and even for apparently incurable diseases.
It takes faith, a conviction that Jesus is able to and willing to heal us.
Prayer
Please grow my faith Lord so that so that I can trust to heal to heal any disease. Amen.
WHEN WE READ the Hebrew Scriptures through the eyes of the first-century Jewish writers, we see that every story was pregnant with the hope of Messiah. Kirt Schneider
New Life Narrabri 