Open your eyes, the harvest is ripe!

Well, hello there!  Thought I ditched the blog? Nope, not quite :D

"Don't you have a saying, 'It's four months until harvest'?  I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest." This is what Jesus said to His disciples just after His encounter with the Woman at the Well. You know, where He, a Jew, met a Samaritan outcast woman at a well in Samaria, and told her 'all that ever she did.'  While she was gone, telling the townspeople about this Man who called Himself the Christ who was now at the well, the disciples urged Jesus to eat, and He told them that He had food that His disciples didn't know about.  "My food," Jesus says, "Is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work." That's when he asks them about their saying and tells them that the fields are already ripe for harvest. Of course, we interpret this to not mean a physical harvest of crops, as in Jesus saying, "Open your eyes and look! That wheat field over there is ready for harvest!" Or "The olives in that grove can be harvested today!" But rather a 'harvest of the souls', you might say. That sounds kind of strange; I just made it up. But I mean, as far as I understand it, Jesus is talking about a spiritual harvest.    

He says later, (this recorded in Matthew 9:37-38) "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest."   You see, He's talking about the spiritual harvest, the bringing of souls into His Kingdom.  He is saying that there are plenty of souls around us, ready to hear His glorious gospel, and be saved. But there is not enough workers to harvest those souls and every day, people are dying without hearing about Him.    

Of course, this is a lesson to us, a reminder that we should be doing what we can now, by God's grace, to advance His Kingdom--that there are opportunities, and people longing, needing, waiting to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we need to take those opportunities to share the gospel as God directs us.   

Now, here's a different thought, though. This is something that hit me some time ago as I was reading this verse.  Think about this: As young people (and maybe you're not young; that's fine),  sometimes we tend to think, 'Oh, I'll get serious about my faith when I'm older.' Or, 'I'll be so faithful to God when I grow up, but now...well, it's okay to be a little slack now,' or 'I'll follow God's lead when I get older.'    Do you ever, even subtly, think like this?  I have before.  It's kind of what our culture tells us, too.  Nowadays, people don't expect the younger generations to be responsible or leaders or mature. And they brush off that disturbing fact with the thought, 'Oh, they're just young. Let them enjoy the pleasures of youth while they can.'    But what if we took John 4:35, the "Don't you have a saying?" verse, and thought about it like this: 'Don't you say you don't need to do it until you get older? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest-the time to do it is now.'   

 What if we said, "Yes, the world says, and Satan tells me, that I can wait until I'm older to be serious about what God tells me to do--after all, I am just a youngin. But Jesus says that the time to live and be serious is now, so I'm going to follow Him now."    God's commands are not just for adults. His commands are for all Christians, young and old alike. We do not need to wait to do what He says, or draw close to Him, or be a leader, or serve His Body. We do not need to wait until we are older to be an example through our words and deeds. We do not need to wait until we are older to proclaim His gospel.  The harvest is ready now. It may be too late later.

Jewels