….BEGGING TO BE KICKED OUT….

I am always impressed how God organizes things around us. Many a times I would come prepared to preach only to find out that other people participated in the program had been impressed to communicate the same. Last Sabbath as I wrote my blog on “everyone is a preacher”* newly ordained elder Edwin Onyango led the Sabbath School with a challenge that everyone is a prophet, since every is called to share God’s will through preaching, guiding, correcting, simply communicating, and the prediction of the future is not the primary prophetic work.

But I get even more thrilled and energized when I see other people excited about Evangelism. Trevor Bell led the Master Plan Evangelism program at the North Church on Wednesday night with so much fervour that everyone present was moved; he was preaching, with inspiration!

Last Sabbath those who attended the “Radical Prayer” intercession rally had placed over 70 leaves on our “prayer tree,” which at the beginning of the day was leafless. A dead brunch was symbolically planted up front, and a basket of leaves placed nearby. If you are praying for someone and planning to invite them to our Evangelistic program come April 17, you write the name on a leaf and pin the leaf to the tree. The tree looks “alive,” its leafy, we know of at least 70+ people coming.

The message by Derek Morris was challenging to all. Based on Luke 10:2 instruction of Jesus to his disciples: “The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest” we were reminded that the harvest is already great. The Lord always has a lot ready to be harvested. Here in this city, there are a lot of people to be harvested for God’s Kingdom!!! But the workers are few. It’s not that there are few workers, but that there are few working workers. All who call themselves “Christian” are called “workers.” The moment you agreed to follow Jesus you signed to be His worker. The problem is that there are few workers in the harvest field. Most workers are elsewhere, just like the son who told his father he would go to work, and never showed up (Matthew 21:28-30).

The challenge comes with instruction to pray. Translators had softened the words in the original. Two words in Greek are especially strong: “deomai” = beg as if your life depended on it, and “ekballo” = kick out, throw forcefully. So, the right translation should read: “beg the Lord of the harvest to kick out the harvesters into His harvest.”

Are you ready to pray such a prayer? Elder Johny Beckles invited us to sing “Lord, lay some soul upon my heart, and love that soul through me, and may I nobly do my part to win that soul for Thee.” I invite you to start praying this simple prayer: “Lord, I give you permission, I beg you to kick me out from my comfort zone into your harvest, wherever it may be!”