Devotional 161008

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. I thank God for being able to enjoy blue sky, green grass, beautiful trees and singing birds. In the midst of uncertainty, crises and stresses, take a moment to look out your window and remind yourself that this planted earth belongs to your Creator God. Satan may have taken captive of the sinful nature of mankind. But our Creator God is relentlessly reaching out to liberate those who are under Satan’s domain from their bondage of sins. For those of us who have been rescued are instantly enlisted to become rescuers. But before we dive in to His rescue missions by our common sense, we need to get used to His guidelines and learn to obey His commands. If volunteers of Red Cross need training to rescue earthquake or disaster’s victims, we (rescue missionaries) need to practice listening and obeying to His words on a daily basis. Otherwise, our missions may become futile, or sometimes may cause even more damages. Paul reminded us in Galatians 6:1, "Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted." Learn to obey His words instead of launching out to help God or others.
The key to the missionary problem is in the hand of God, and that key is prayer not work, that is, not work as the word is popularly understood today because that may mean the evasion of concentration on God. The key to the missionary problem is not the key of common sense, nor the medical key, nor the key of civilization or education or even evangelization. The key is prayer. “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field’” (Matt 9:36-38). Naturally, prayer is not practical, it is absurd; we have to realize that prayer is stupid from the ordinary common-sense point of view.
There are no nations in Jesus Christ's outlook, but the world. How many of us pray with out respect of persons, and with respect to only one Person, Jesus Christ? He owns the harvest that is produced by distress and conviction of sin, and this is the harvest we have to pray that laborers may be thrust out to reap. We are taken up with active work while people all round are ripe to harvest, and we do not reap one of them, but waste our Lord's time in over-energized activities. Suppose the crisis comes in your father's life, in your brother's life, are you there as a laborer to reap the harvest for Jesus Christ? "Oh, but I have a special work to do!" No Christian has a special work to do. A Christian is called to be Jesus Christ's own, one who is not above his Master, one who does not dictate to Jesus Christ what he intends to do. Our Lord calls us to do no special work: He calls us to Himself. " Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field," and He will engineer circumstances and thrust you out.
This is so true that His command for us is to pray – ask the Lord of harvest. Prayer may sound like an excuse for inaction. But in spiritual realm, prayer is a key to turn the tide, provided that our prayer drives us to surrender totally to the Lord of Harvest. We may pray for missionary or evangelistic ministry in church. But how often we have asked God taking over our entire life for Himself? If we daily surrender ourselves to the Holy Spirit, God will make a difference in our lives and use us to impact other lives. Let’s give Him a chance to make our lives to be His channels of blessings to many…
Love you in Christ,
Lawrence