sowing and reaping

SOWING AND REAPING FOR GOD – SEVEN LAWS OF HARVESTING

 

(February 15, 2024) Richard Winter challenges…

Many times you will hear preachers begin some point with ‘Jesus said…’

The truth is that Jesus said a lot of things!

  • Some were direct commandments, such as ‘Leave your boats and follow me’ (Matthew 4:18–22).
  • Some were instructions, such as ‘Worship God only and serve people’ (Matthew 22:37-39).
  • Some were easy to understand… and some were hard.

To help His hearers understand things, Jesus often took an event from life that everyone should be able to comprehend and see the spiritual application. These have been recorded as short teaching parables… earthly lessons with a heavenly application.

But… did listeners always comprehend?  
Take Matthew 13:3 for example – ‘… He told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed.”’ Then He tells the parable of seed sowing concluding with this challenge, ‘Are you listening to this? Really listening?’ (Matthew 13:9Mge).

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2019 – SURELY THE HARVEST IS VAST!

(January 16, 2019) Missionary statesman Dr George Forbes reminds us that …

A heart for the harvest is essential to this great spiritual task in the world! Every believer needs a heart that is sensitive, responsive and obedient to the word of God, about gathering this massive harvest.

The Lord Jesus uses terms from the natural world of harvesting to show us the will and the way of God in the primary spiritual ministry of bringing people to Christ. As we embrace 2019, I encourage readers to think with me of such terms! They need to be burned into our memory, written on our hearts and fulfilled by the grace of God.  

Identifying important harvest terms

  • ‘The harvest is vast’
  • ‘The labourers are few’
  • ‘Do not say four months’
  • ‘The harvest’
  • ‘Lift up your eyes’
  • ‘Look on the fields’
  • ‘They are white to harvest already’
  • ‘He who sows’
  • ‘He who reaps’
  • ‘Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.’

The following three texts from the words of Jesus identify each one of these important terms above…

  • John 4:35
    ‘Do you not say, It is yet four months, and the harvest comes? Behold, I say to you, Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white to harvest already.’
  • John 4:36
    ‘And he who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit to life eternal, so that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.’
  • Mat 9:37-38
    ‘Then he told his disciples, “The harvest is vast, but the workers are few. So ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest”.’

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