Christ broke me this morning.
When I began sharing my thoughts on my study of Matthew’s Gospel, framed as a conversation, I figured there would be days like this. I wanted to share with you what I studied today because it is important. Not as part of the story, but as. The author who is being transformed. After this morning’s devotions I was left praying for repentance and crying out to God for my unsaved family members and friends.
I was reading Matthew 9:35-38. This passage begins to expound on Jesus’ ministry and his expansion beyond Galilee into the surrounding cities and villages. He traveled through large cities, centers of power and wealth, and small villages, centers of the obscure and the poor. The significance for me this AM was that the gospel is for all socioeconomic classes. Matthew records that he taught in the synagogues in all of these places.
Verse 36 says the he saw the crowds, implying that even in the centers of power and wealth that there were crowds that gathered to hear him. The word “saw” implies a spiritual awareness of their condition. Matthew describes that he saw people were “harassed and helpless.” When we think of the harassed and the helpless we thing of poor people and their physical condition. The troubles that they are experiencing.
If only they could get food or had a place to stay. While these things are important, I believe Matthew was describing their spiritual condition and by implication their spiritual leaders. We need to look at Matthew’s description and implication and contrast that with today’s Christianity. Matthew says that he grieved, felt compassion, for them. He felt genuine grief for their spiritual condition.
Satan and his demons have successfully perverted our society today.Most of us are not called to be preachers. The requirements for being preachers is laid out in his letters to Timothy. But, we are called. There is a sequence for being called and there is a definition: A calling is God’s divine summoning of people to Himself, to His ways, and to His service. This calls for a basic understanding of that this universal calling of people precedes specialized callings, like preaching and prophecy. The proof of this is in 2 Corinthians 5:17-20, where we are universally called to be “ambassadors of Christ and stewards of the gospel.”
First we are called to salvation – to have a personal relationship with Him. Personal worship of Him. Personal prayer with Him. Next we are called to see – learn to view the world through Kingdom eyes and be aware of the spiritually lost, neglected and marginalized. And finally, we are called to serve – we are to engage in prayer, giving, personal witness, acts of mercy, and reconciliation.
In verses 37 and 38 of Matthew 9, Jesus likens the time we live in as “harvest.” There is a shortage of laborers. In the first century, there were only 13 people on the team. Jesus and his 12 disciples weren’t enough to carry the gospel to the millions of people that inhabited the earth at that time. Today there are roughly two billion professed Christians on the earth and we are still experiencing a labor shortage in the harvest fields.
Where is our harvest field? Our first harvest field is in our own home. All of us have family members that are unsaved and have fallen away. We should be praying daily for God to use us in our home, or if we aren’t there to intervene on our behalf for our family and friends that aren’t saved.
As Christians, we should be using our platforms to further the spreading of the Gospel. Even if we are selling a product. Surrender that platform to Christ. Pray earnestly (with grief, fire, and passion) for the Kingdom Harvest. If we aren’t doing this, we need to repent and then move forward in His perfect will.