The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest
How big is your city? Around 47,000 people call La Jolla home. If my wife and I were to share the Gospel with one person per day for 365 days, we will have reached just over one percent of the population who do not identify themselves as connected to the Church (around 28,000 people). That means after approximately 100 years of doing this, we will have reached the lost of La Jolla.
When looking at this, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and discouraged. This overwhelm can cause believers like you and me to give up before trying. It takes a certain kind of person to look at Mt. Everest from the bottom and say, “let’s do this!”
Jesus does not give us a Mt. Everest to climb alone, however. When Jesus commissions His disciples, He does not tell them to go out into the world and create converts. Converts change their belief system, which is good and necessary. Jesus, however, asks for more. Jesus asks that we go out into the world and create disciples.
Disciples of Jesus don’t simply convert others, they mirror the ministry of Jesus by teaching, healing, and spreading the Good News of the Kingdom.* They create replicas of themselves; they help people to become disciples of Jesus.
If my wife and I help 10 people over the next 365 days to become disciples of Jesus, and during those 365 days, each of them help 3 others to become disciples of Jesus, then by the end of that year, we will only have reached 0.10% of La Jolla. If each of those 30 people who became a disciple of Christ continue to make disciples alongside of us, and then each of those create disciples, and then each them create disciples, and on, the entirety of the lost in La Jolla will have had the opportunity to become disciples of Jesus in less than 4 years!!
The harvest is plentiful; the workers are few.
Today, take a step.
Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to become a disciple of Jesus. You believe, you acknowledge, but Jesus is inviting you to follow. Perhaps God is asking you to make disciples of Jesus. Maybe the season is here for you to become a harvester in the fields. Perhaps God is sending you, or maybe He already has and it’s time to harvest right where you are planted.
Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.
Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a step today… just one is fine.
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*Leon, Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew. Pillar New Testament Commentary (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1992), 237–240, and Keener, C. S., Matthew (Vol. 1, Mt 9:35–38) (InterVarsity Press, 1997).