I held tightly to my husband as we hurried to catch a taxi. Night had settled, but the city continued to pulsate with a steady flow of cars, motorcycles, and people. Rounding a corner, I saw her sleeping in front of a store. Light from the doorway highlighted her young face, and her thin blanket came up short in covering her dirty socks and flip-flops. I had come thousands of miles to Sao Paulo, Brazil, to speak to women about their God-given value and His empowering love, yet I felt powerless to help the woman lying in front of me.
Matthew 9:36-38 records the heartbeat of Christ as He looked with compassion on crowds of people who came to Him. Moved by their great needs, Jesus used the situation to teach His disciples. Interestingly, Jesus didn’t tell His disciples to pray for opportunities to reach out. Jesus knew the poor would always be with them (Mark 14:7). Opportunity isn’t the need; laborers are.
Perhaps we find it easier to pray for opportunities rather than understand that every day—every moment— provides divine appointments. As those who carry the life of Christ in us, we carry the restorative anointing Isaiah speaks of. But we can’t do it alone.
Each of us is “a rebuilder of walls and a restorer of homes” (Isaiah 58:12) when we reach out to those in need, and when we pray for God to raise up laborers in our midst. Both motivate us to action. The women I spoke to that night needed to hear that God places great value on their lives and that He heals broken hearts. The woman sleeping on the street, and countless others like her, are waiting to hear that good news.
NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: 1 Samuel 25:1-42
More:
Read Ezekiel 34:8-11 and John 21:15-19 to find out the correlation between our love for God and our willingness to care for others.
Next:
What hurdles keep you from responding to the call to bring God’s healing to others? How is God challenging you to think differently about your responsibility in reaching out to the hurting?
eppistle on April 1, 2011 at 7:42 am
God has divine appointments set up for you today to share His good news with non-Christians and/or Christians. Pray that you will be sensitive enough to notice those appointments and obedient to keep those appointments. And then get your “feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace” (Eph.6:15). It’s going to be an adventure!
regina franklin on April 6, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Dear eppistle–how accurate in using the word “adventure” as we can often become so bound to our schedules and agendas. May the Lord do as you have prayed–that we would be sensitive to His voice and compassionately bold in our responses to those around us.
winn collier on April 1, 2011 at 9:02 am
We do a Monday breakfast at our local shelter. It’s too easy to do the “work” and miss the people. Thank you.
regina franklin on April 6, 2011 at 7:40 pm
Dear Winn,
Good point–we face an inherent tension in our fallenness. Our desire to do good deeds in order to appease our own desires to be known for doing good. It’s in our willingness to invest in people’s lives–to hear their stories–that self-centeredness dies.
GChoo on April 1, 2011 at 9:06 am
Regina, thank you for the reminder to pray not only how to reach out to the lost, but importantly for God to bring more fellow Christian brothers and sisters into this ministry.
Praise God for you and your husband’s willing hearts to be involved in the work of this ministry. I pray that God will continue to give you strength, wisdom, discernment and to speak their language of pain, sorrow and the brokenness these people are facing. May their soul be healed and restored through your obedience of the Lord’s command to bring His love and understanding to the lost. May God also touch the hearts of us Christians to go out into the field and shine the Light of God into the lives of the Lost, His sheep.
regina franklin on April 6, 2011 at 7:43 pm
Dear GChoo–thank you for your prayers. I desire for the Lord to increase the fruitfulness of His words in our lives as we reach out to those around us–for His glory and not ours. I want the Lord to increase my desire to share His love with others. Complacency is a deadly disease of the spirit.
daisymarygoldr on April 1, 2011 at 11:45 am
Very true! The harvest indeed is fully ripe and ready. We need look no further than the Church. Filled to its brim and overflowing, multitudes lost in their religiosity. People who were born into Christian families, graduating from Bible schools, ministering in the church for 10, 20, 30, 40 years but without having a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. How will they see and know who the real Jesus is if they are not born-again?
With doctrinal infighting, betrayals, and widespread apathy, doubt has replaced belief. Faith in crisis because of which instead of confident hope in Christ, there are questions. Slandering, gossiping and devouring one another with unforgiving attitudes hidden behind an outward show of righteousness. Who will attend to the cries of unwanted pregnancies, hate ripping apart marriages that were supposedly built on love, youth drifting away aimlessly—dejected and despised, overwhelmed and burnt out church workers calling it quits?
Jesus looks around and has compassion on His sheep that are left without a shepherd. He seeks to rescue the lost, heal the wounded, liberate the addicted, illuminate the disillusioned, revive the fainted and strengthen the weak. We are called to be “a rebuilder of walls and a restorer of homes” not just for those who are lost in the bars, strip clubs, inner city streets, football fields, golf courses and the market places in the world. There is an urgent need of laborers who will reach out to those who are lost and hurting right within the Church—family members, friends, neighbors and co-workers.
Prayer and laborer is the pressing need of the hour. Every believer is a laborer. The Lord of the harvest is looking for whom He can send. May we be spurred into action and take the good news of salvation to the unsaved in the Church. It is my prayer that we will no longer stand idle in His vineyard. We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the One who sent us. The night is coming, and then no one can work.
regina franklin on April 6, 2011 at 7:45 pm
Dear daisymarygoldr–thank you for the reminder that any outreach begins at home (in our Jerusalem). The risk is great, but the transformation is exponential.