The Good Harvest

Read: Luke 10:1-24

The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields. Luke 10:2

IN WORD

In this world, expansionist kingdoms are frowned upon. That’s because they usually expand by coercion against the will of the people. They conquer and control. They intimidate. They take what doesn’t rightfully belong to them.

Not so with God’s Kingdom. He sent His Son into this world to reclaim what was lost, to restore what was broken, to release what was held captive, to re-create what was destroyed. He conquers with kindness and pursues with winsome affection. He chooses influence over control, invitation over intimidation, and cooperation over forced compliance. And He takes only what rightfully belongs to Him, which happens to be everything.

So Jesus didn’t tell His followers to go out and coerce other followers. He sent them as workers into a harvest and urged them to pray for many more workers to join the fruitful labor. The job of this conquering force was not to kill and capture but to heal and declare the Kingdom of God. That’s it. They were bearers of exceedingly good news.

Perhaps that’s why our harvests are sometimes so meager; we’ve declared news that doesn’t sound very good to many people. We’ve proclaimed messages other than the Kingdom of God. We haven’t always conquered with love.

IN DEED

We have to recapture the spirit of the harvest. We need the right prayer focus (on harvesters, not on fruit), the right message (the good news of the Kingdom, not just the Good News of salvation), and the right attitude (mercy over judgment and kindness over contentiousness). People flocked to Jesus because His goodness was obvious. His Kingdom grows when we make it obvious too.

ADDITIONAL READING: Isaiah 9:7

“Gospel” signifies good tidings that . . . make a man’s heart glad, and make him sing, dance, and leap for joy.

WILLIAM TYNDALE