34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s
still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.
Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. The words of Jesus to his disciples. A different place, a different time, but my sense is we need to hear what Jesus is saying right here, right now. Of course, you’re thinking, these are the words of Jesus, but are you simultaneously thinking maybe somewhere else, maybe someone else?
We’ve been praying on a monthly basis for nearly three years, for the spiritual renewal of the church & the spiritual revival of Christianity across our nation. Last year we began picking up on the increase in frequency of stories of people’s lives encountering Jesus and beginning the process of transformation by the Holy Spirit of God. We began to pray for the trickle of new believers to become a flood.
The trickle is continuing, praise the Lord, but there is more to come! Jesus spoke these words to his disciples immediately following his meeting with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well on the outskirts of Sychar. They’d just returned from the town where they’d been to buy food and missed out on a deeply profound conversation between Jesus and this woman - how often have you felt it all seems to happen when you’re not around!? That’s how I’ve sometimes felt, so if that’s you, as a church leader, or this reflects the mindset of your church, let me encourage you to lean into one or more of the following:
1. Thank God for what he’s already doing. The very fact people are coming to faith in Jesus, in many cases without direct contact with the church, or an existing Christian, is a reminder God has not finished with us yet! God is on the move and it’s not dependent on me, or you. Jesus tells his disciples to open their eyes and look at the fields’. He’s constantly and consistently doing his work, speaking into the hearts of people, some of whom are in contact with us.
2. Dare to believe there are ‘fields ripe for harvest’ where you are. There’s no doubt now with the evidence popping up all around us, God is more engaged in people’s lives than we recognise or are willing to get involved with. I sometimes think we extend the NIMBY attitude across the board, to the point we’re saying similar to the Lord.
3. Prepare to welcome whoever God sends across your path in Jesus’ name. My current most frequently mentioned anecdote goes back to June 2022 when I visited the Isle of Lewis and Harris, the location of what became known as The Lewis Awakening 1949-52. The whole island of Lewis and Harris was impacted in ways which still ripple out to this day. Is there anything we can do to help speed the renewal we so desperately need? That’s the question I put to Willie McCloud, a now 90 something year-old who, converted during the revival as a teenager. He answered me by quoting John 3:8 in the authorised version (if you want the Scottish accent included, you’ll need to ask Alisdair):
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
“There is nothing we can do Nigel, but we must be ready”.
4. Provide an environment for growth (as a disciple of Jesus). My sense is every church, which is a gathering of God’s ‘called out’ people, should be a greenhouse. A greenhouse doesn’t change the nature of a plant, but it does provide an environment for growth. There is more than a grain of truth in saying ‘it takes a church to grow a Christian’, because church, a family of brothers and sisters in Christ, is the most conducive place for the growth of anyone towards the maturity of Christ. If when you look around that’s not what you see, I suggest that’s top of your job list! At least once a year my greenhouse for plants needs a serious clear up too and the church is no different.
5. Cultivate your own trust in God and one another. I’ve just been to Welton BC and picked up their ‘Looking Forward’ vision paper. Whilst they’re rejoicing in the new believers the Lord is adding into their church family, they comment: ‘crucially when it comes to salvation, we’ll only see the people God can trust us with. This means us all getting stuck in loving/disciple making/joyfully serving’. That’s something I recognise. ‘How’ is a mystery, but I recognise Jesus primary call was for us to ‘go’. As in Luke 10 those who ‘go’ need to trust wholly in Jesus and I believe God sees our heart and is inclined to trust new believers to those who have trusting hearts.
Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.
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