Scripture
Reflection: Matthew 9: 35 – 38
35 Jesus
was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and
proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and
every kind of sickness. 36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion
for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a
shepherd. 37 Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest is
plentiful, but the workers are few. 38 "Therefore beseech the
Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest."
Jesus, you really saw
the people….with eyes of compassion…help me to see through your eyes the people
the surround me. Help me to understand
the needs in a way that I have not in the past.
Help me to see beyond the present presentation to the kind of person that
they can be, if touched by your Holy Spirit.
Jesus you saw the
people that presented to you in need in a way that only you can. As people who needed your touch, your healing,
your ministry to their hurts both physical and emotional.
You knew that
they need leadership and direction. You
knew the need that surrounded you. You knew the need for workers for your harvest. Help me to remember that it is your harvest and not mine… you are the
one that owns the harvest…the seed and the field…I am just the farm hand.
This request that you made of the disciples, you asked them to pray to the
Father for the workers that were need.
You who were the agent of creation…were limited and were unable within the present context to do
the whole job…unless the Father sent the needed workers. It is interesting that all but one of those who were asked to pray became the answer to their prayers. Funny how that works...
You walked the cities, the streets, towns and the villages, you knew the need up close and personal. You saw
the death…you saw the twisting that was going on of peoples hopes and dreams
and of what could be...and you asked the disciples to pray not just for the harvest but for harvest workers. In fact the harvest was assumed.
In this day that will start all too soon, give me your eyes to see the people that surround me with you eyes, to identify the needs with eyes like yours.
Romans 8:5-8
5-8 Those
who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own
moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life.
I can
only trust that you have lead me to the place where I am at for a reason. I am here with the blessings and the growing edges as a part of the plan. It is not coincidence or luck that has brought me here but blessing and grace.
Those who
trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and
breathing God!
So the point is not moral muscle but grace and hope worked out over a lifetime of trusting for the next step to be shown. So really you call me to trusting for the next step to be able to sense the Spirits power at work. The validation of the Spirit comes as I step out in faith and trust.
Obsession with self in these
matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a
spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God.
Ok so
the lesson to learn is not to focus on where I am but where you are Jesus? You
are at work in your people…you are at work shaping and impacting events and
forces that shape my world. You are at
work shaping and changing me in that process at the same time.
You
are at work in this place so it can be a place of holiness and of hope a
place of dynamic and sustained vitality…a place of new challenges…a place where
the Spirit of the Living God can work freely and without constraint.
The
focus needs to be on you and on your grace not on legalism and on dotting “I’s”
and crossing “T’s” not on self in the sense that the Law can some how fix what
is wrong inside…it just can not happened.
So
what is the next step? How do I begin to
focus on you instead of self?
Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored.
The
start is in thanksgiving and gratefulness for what you have already done. I am blessed and I am cared for and I have
been lead. All of that is because of
your grace at work within me. That has
been a work of power…to take me and bring me to where I am right now. You have been the one to provide and sustain, to strengthen and to protect. You have been at work
throughout my life and I trust you to continue that work.
