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“Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.” John 4:35

These words of Jesus capture the urgency and the opportunity of the time we are in, a compelling invitation to be part of what God is doing all over the world. He is calling us to co-labor with Him in bringing the harvest of souls from communities, cities and nations, for the glory of the Father.

Prior to this announcement, we see a glimpse of the harvest that Jesus was declaring about.  A lost daughter, the Samaritan woman, comes home to be reconciled to the Father and be part of His family. She . She believed and received God’s love, life and light, which is  the ultimate longing of every human heart. She accepted the free gift and was never the same again. All throughout her life she’s been looking for love in the wrong places, drinking from wells that could never satisfy her deepest longings. But on that day, one moment with Love Himself, Jesus, she was set free from the shackles of sin, shame, guilt and fear.  Her freedom was beautifully demonstrated in her actions after encountering Love.  She left her jar and went straight to the middle of the city and spoke to the men, telling them about Jesus. and because of this, many believed her and came to Jesus themselves. One seed that received the outpouring of God’s love brought forth a huge harvest. Her heart became a living well for the Living Water.

Lift Up Your Eyes

The Samaritan woman is a picture of humanity’s brokenness, emptiness, lostness and the need of the Savior. If we just look around, we will see a sea of humanity desperate for Agape, for God Himself. Oftentimes we miss the harvest in front of us because our hearts are preoccupied by things, worries and issues. We see from our eyes and not from His heart. Jesus is inviting us to “see” humanity the way He sees people. To see as He sees, we have to first look to Jesus, to the heart of the Father and to the Cross. It is because of His love and compassion that Jesus came to seek and save the lost.

Jesus never performed miracles and demonstrated power apart from love. In Matthew 9:36-38 it is written, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” In the same way, as laborers sent out to the field, we need God’s love to be poured out into our hearts for the lost. To co-labor with Him is to capture His heart.

Sow In Tears

We can only see the harvest through tears. Tears are liquid prayers. We receive the burden and compassion when we pray for people and situations that break the heart of God. In Psalms 126: 5&6, “Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.” Jesus wept for Jerusalem. In the same way we are called to weep for people, communities and nations for salvation, justice, mercy and peace.

Set Your Hearts On Heaven

As ambassadors of love, sons and daughters of the King, we are called and sent out to be the hands and feet of Jesus to the broken world. To bring the reality of heaven, the Kingdom of God, to address the needs of men. This is possible only when we live in complete alignment with the reality of heaven, that is, to live from heaven to earth. In Colossians 3:1&2 “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” All we need to reap the harvest comes from Him, through Him and all goes back to Him, for His glory.

Paul Yadao
www.paulyadao.com

I admit that sometimes when I look at the Heart of the Father and I see that His heart is for me, I am filled with such peace and rest and joy, yet fail to go on further to see that His same heart of perfect love is for others as well. Even the others whom I disagree with, others who might frustrate me, others whose core values differ greatly from mine, yes, those “others” are dearly loved by the Father as well.

I am grateful God did not wait for me to get my act together or have my values line up with His before started loving me. He didn’t wait for me to agree with Him on everything before He sent Jesus to die on the cross as an atoning sacrifice to redeem me. He just simultaneously saw the worst in me and the best in me and chose me in Christ.

Last year while my wife and I were at a restaurant with our son and his friend, I overheard our waitress talking to a couple at another table near us about some pain she was in (if I remember correctly, it was from an accident) I eventually asked her about the pain and if I could pray for her.

Eventually, she told me that she was a single mom and her little girl had just told her the other day out of nowhere, “Mom, I wanna go to church.” She shared with me she didn’t feel like it was a coincidence that I was at her workplace sharing with her right after her daughter “randomly” said how she wanted her to take her to church.

The point is, you never know what’s going on that you can’t see in someone’s life, both the bad and painful. You also never know when God is working behind the scenes, preparing them for encountering the life of Christ through us.

I landed in a city a year ago and was getting my rental car at the airport. When I got to the counter, the young man in his twenties asked me what my plans were while in his city. I told him I’d be speaking at a church there. He then began to open up his heart and share with me how he had recently broken up with his girlfriend and had been thinking a lot about God. I had the opportunity to share with him the love of Christ and he allowed me to pray with him. It was so easy and he was so open. It was another reminder to me that you never know what’s going on with the people right in front of you and how God is preparing them.

Finally, last spring, I had the privilege to minister in Cuba with a GMA team. It was an amazing honor and we saw God’s Spirit touch many people, including many coming forward for the call to salvation in Christ.

When I got to the airport in Havana, I had to wait in line for quite a while by myself with no wifi connection. I finally decided to strike up a conversation with the person in front of me rather than continue with all of us standing there bored and in silence. She began to share with me that she was back in Cuba visiting family and shared all the tragedies happening in her family. Then we started talking about God being a loving Father. She was crying, so I asked if I could give her a hug. Next thing I knew, she was in my arms weeping and I felt like I was back in the conference at the church releasing the love of the Father.

I shared with her the love of Christ and got her number and connected her with a church in Miami where she lives so they could follow up and help her grow in her relationship with Christ. It was all a bit stunning. Afterwards, I wondered how many times God has put people right in front of me to share Him with but I was too distracted to notice. I am still growing and learning not to be too distracted to notice the precious ones God places in front of me.

I am repenting for being self-absorbed in my own little world rather than seeing who the Father sees and how He sees them. I may not “feel” like I am an evangelist, but I am a child of God who by Grace through faith in Christ has come into union with our resurrected Savior. What is greater and more and more important than my feelings is the fact that Jesus, the greatest Evangelist ever, now lives inside me, even during my most, unanointed or boring or busy or distracted moments.

Maybe I’m not technically an evangelist, but I am a son of my Father and His heart for the harvest is huge! His heart is daily yearning for the lost to come home to Papa through faith in Christ.

May God’s grace be upon us as we cooperate with and overflow with His divine love and grace for the broken humanity that God wants to restore in Christ!

Christopher Olson
www.christopherjolson.com

More than two thousand years after Jesus commissioned his first disciples to go to the ends of the earth, billions of people around the world still have not heard His name. These unreached people groups need access to the Word of God in a way that they can understand.

My wife Stephanie and I came face to face with this reality in 1998, when we traveled to the jungles of the Amazon, seeking to make contact with a remote unreached tribe. But when we got there, I realized we had no effective way to communicate the Gospel to them. We found an amazing resource called the “JESUS” film, which visually depicts the story of Jesus, and began translating it into their language. But how would we show the film in remote villages without electricity? And how would we bring all the bulky equipment required for a movie showing up the river with just a small canoe?

Those crucial questions sparked an idea that led to what became Renew World Outreach. At Renew, we develop digital technology and strategies that empower missionaries to overcome the physical and cultural barriers to presenting the Gospel and multiply their field impact. We’re constantly innovating new strategies and tools to get God’s word distributed around the world, including portable video projector systems, solar-powered audio Bible players, microSD cards containing a digital library of Gospel media, and WiFi hotspots that distribute Gospel resources.

These tools and strategies, in the hands of local indigenous field workers, loaded with media resources like the “JESUS” film and audio Bible recordings in local languages, have been transforming the landscape of the mission field, helping church-planting movements that are exploding across regions that were previously difficult to penetrate.

From the rural villages of Zambia, where hundreds gather in below-freezing temperatures to watch the “JESUS” film; to Sudanese refugee camps, where dozens listen together to the Bible in their language on an audio Bible player; to a bus in Southeast Asia, where commuting passengers connect to a Lightstream WiFi hotspot to watch the story of Jesus on their phones, these tools and strategies are helping missionaries across the world introduce people to Jesus and disciple new believers in unreached areas.

One of our field partners in South Sudan uses audio Bible players to form Bible listening groups that gather regularly to listen to and discuss the Bible. In one group, a 104-year-old woman heard the Gospel proclaimed in her language for the first time in her life. She was overjoyed, saying, “I am so thankful God kept me alive long enough to hear this in my language!”

It is a great injustice that she waited 104 years to hear God’s word in her own language. No one should have to wait so long, yet there are still billions waiting to hear. Join us as we all team up to make Jesus famous among the nations where He’s not yet known.

David Palusky, Renew World Outreach
www.renewoutreach.org

The story of Daniel, and how his heart was burdened for a pagan king, is one example of how sons and daughters walk out their destiny. Because we know that the mission of our Father is a family mission, we do not stand against the world in judgement. We are for the world. Our hearts are invested in those we love, honor, and serve. We are always asking the question, “How can I be a blessing?” because we know it’s the heart of our Father to bless– and because, in our alignment with Him, He has put the desire to bless into our hearts as well.
If you really want to know how to bring honor and glory to God in this world, become an agent of the Father’s blessing.

We are carriers of the Dove’s habitation and we live from heaven to earth.

The rest of the world is living from earth toward heaven, hoping to get some of heaven’s blessings and resources into their lives.

We are already in the Father’s house; He has already said, “All that I have is yours.”

We are agents who bring those resources and solutions into every area of our world. We carry the atmosphere of heaven – the love and honor we have experienced in the Father’s living room– for others around us to experience.

We can’t impart what we don’t have. Daniel and his friends understood who they were and who they belonged to. The culture within them shaped the culture around them.

Culture changers know who they are, whose they are, what they have, and what they are called to do – to be a chosen nation and a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9.)

They also know what is happening in this world and look for opportunities to bless and carry shalom into restless, anxious, and even dark places.

As priests, we re-present God before the people and the people before God. As sons and daughters of the King, we carry keys of the kingdom to bind and loose and prophesy the King’s decrees. Those are all intercessory roles, and they flow from the intimacy we have with the Father. From that intimacy, we take on the responsibility of ruling and reigning with Him. Our place of habitation becomes a kingdom culture, and our culture brings the blessings of love, honor and covenant. The increase of the kingdom and the government of shalom are going to be on the shoulders of the Son (Isaiah 9:7) – and the sons and daughters.

The kingdom culture is first and foremost a family culture – not an institutional culture, not an organizational agenda, and not a religious movement. If the fellowship of the Father, Son, and Spirit in heaven is the prototype for earth, as we saw in Eden, then heaven’s environment on earth is going to look like that fellowship. We will still honor people we disagree with, love those who are not yet receptive to our love, and bless those who might expect us to curse them. That’s what the prayer “On earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10) is all about. We do this together with the Father, Son and Spirit. It’s a journey together as a family.

Together in the family of heaven you are called to shift culture. You only have authority over what you weep over, so I want to challenge you to position yourself to receive the Lord’s heart in the areas of culture He has put on your heart. What does He say about these spaces and these people? And then, I want you to ask the Father, what is He doing and how you can bless what He’s doing. It’s a wonderful thing to be entrusted by Papa God.

Leif Hetland
www.leifhetland.com