You’ve heard the adage, ‘Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today!’ This is something that resonates with me in my daily activities and haunts my children in their dreams because I have always stressed that procrastination is not your friend. This holds true in our walk with God and our responsibility to mankind. In John 4:35 Jesus told his disciples, “Say not ye, there are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.” We as the redeemed can all agree, we need to reach out to the lost and reach our world. There is no time like the present to tell someone about Jesus.
Jesus gave his disciples instructions before he ascended that were later labeled as ‘The Great Commission’. In Mark 16:14-16 it gives the account. “Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” If we believe His word that tells us that he died, shedding His blood for our sins, He was buried and rose from the grave on the third day, we as His disciples in the twenty first century should obey this charge as well.
WE are each responsible for our worlds, meaning the people whose lives we would touch and have influence over whether it be by physical contact or through any other means of communication. The world has grown smaller in general, and each individual’s worlds has grown bigger due to technology. We know there are those who just don’t want to get involved and will make every excuse and reason why they cannot do anything for the Lord. For those, this may be the end of the article for you. However, for those who want to genuinely participate in the Kingdom mission, here are just a few tips to get you started as a harvester. Learn your world, listen to your world, and love your world. Let’s touch on each of these briefly.
Learning your world; can be summed up in three words, technology, technology, technology. We live in the iGeneration of Ego casting. This includes iClubs, iPods, iTunes, iPhones, iClouds, iPads, iWee and iNstagram to only name the ones that I am familiar with. We of course still have the ‘old fashioned’ media of TV and Radio with the addition of social media. I am briefly familiar with chat rooms, Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest and My Space, however, I keyed in a search for ‘Social Media Platforms’ today, this year of our Lord 2022, and the first thing that came up was; “103+ Social Media Sites You Need to Know in 2022”. I feel like I need a surprised face emoji right here! Then we have texting, emailing, blogging, vlogging, opinion polls, ‘thought of the day’, product critiques, etc. With browsers that are growing daily also, Google, Bing, Yahoo, AltaVista, Cuil, Excite, Galaxy, AOL, Giablast, Askmenow, Wink, Wikipedia and the list goes. These have not yet touched on the global gaming and virtual world that exists alongside the physical world we live in. Are you exhausted yet? This has only scratched the surface of what the profile of the world looks like today. If this is a foreign concept to you or if this scares you or shuts you down automatically, you cannot be an effective harvester in the Kingdom of God in our day. Say ye not, someone else will do it or I will get to it later. The time is now to learn your world.
Listening to your world; We can learn a lot about people by listening to them. The reason why so many social media platforms exist and are growing in number daily is because people want to be seen and heard. The 101 in communications is listening. The old-fashioned platforms for listening such as the dinner table, hunting, fishing, going to the park or bedtime story time have been stripped away by new technology, or have they? I would make the assertion that it is the other way around. Because of the loss of these, technology has swooped in to take their place because people have an innate need to communicate. However, it is not going away, so we must take advantage of whatever listening avenue we have and let people know that we care and that “Jesus is still the way the truth and the life”, John 14:6.
Loving your world; We can show them we care by being engaged. Letting them know we are genuinely interested in their story. Giving them assurance that they are not alone. Jesus is always with them; all they need to do is speak His name and they will have His undivided attention. Do not let social media fool you and dictate those who you should reach out to or not; people are hurting and lonely. Just because we live in a world with different methods and programs for doing things, they feel the same emotions that each generation has gone through. We can teach them the Word of God and even some of ‘grandma’s ways’, by meeting them where they are. Bridge the generational or cultural gap by finding something in common, even if it’s apple pie. Loving others is not shown by criticizing them or their ways of doing things, but by showing them how Jesus can use them in their individuality for His Glory!
In harvesting, the wheat and the chaff are all brought in together and then the process of winnowing separates the two. In the olden days it was done by hand and now by machine. Though processes change the concept and results remains the same. God is the winnower, and we are the harvesters. We must not waste time in trying to winnow out the husk in the field. We are running out of daylight. We must love everyone and tell them all about Jesus and let the Lord do the rest. We are not alone either, it takes a team effort. The harvest is ready to be brought in, will you accept the call?
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