Sunday, August 20, 2017

LIFE 'S LABOUR


UV 2752/10000 L.I.F.E. ‘s Labour
Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few;
Matthew 9 v 37
To paraphrase this uni-verse, “ The results are guaranteed but there are few people faithful enough who are willing to sow the seed and wait for the harvest.” The results or fruit are guaranteed or underwritten by the Lord. The crop cannot fail for He has guaranteed it. But we should be willing to sow the seed in terms of believing in the promises of the Lord, in sowing the seed of the Word in the minds and hearts of all whom we come in contact with. We are to sow the seed in terms of setting goals, making plans and executing these plans believing that the Lord’s will be done.
The harvest refers to the garnering of people to follow Jesus. It also refers to the hungry souls that are waiting for a message of hope that can save them. It is also a harvest of righteousness in terms of the internal fruit of godly character that needs to grow in believers and followers of Jesus. The Holy Spirit labours hard to grow the spiritual fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and humility. The seed of these fruit are found in the four lettered word-LIFE: love, integrity, faith and excellence. We need to plant the seed of the love of God and the love of Jesus in our hearts. St Paul wrote that love is the most excellent of gifts and fruit or the best of results that the Lord is looking for in our lives. With love will grow the character of Jesus- integrity. The third letter in life is ‘f’ which stands for faith. Without the letter ‘f”, life would become a lie. Without faith, our life would become a lie. Without faith, we turn the truth of Jesus being the Truth into a lie. Without faith, we will be either blind leaders or blind followers. We will be blinded by lies or half truths. With faith, we become visionary leaders. We can see the past and present with great clarity as well as have a glimpse into eternity. The fourth letter ‘e’ is excellence. To our faith, we should add excellence in our behaviour, communication, professions, achievements. Excellence implies that we are passionate about improving degree by degree, day by day and in every way. Love, integrity, faith and excellence should inform every moment of our lives in Christ. This is our labour of love. This is the expression of our gratitude to Christ for saving us and enabling us to be the best for Him.
The labourer that Jesus expects us to be are leaders who are visionaries, not blind leaders or purblind or short sighted. A labourer of Jesus is entitled to his wages- eternal life, peace, contentment, satisfaction of needs, blessings of every conceivable kind. We are labourers for life and of LIFE. As labourers, we need to plough or prepare our hearts and minds as well as the hearts and minds of others whom the Lord brings our way to continually receive the good seed. We need to sow the seed, water it, tend it, fence it, see it bear fruit or lasting results that are pleasing to the Lord of the harvest. We need to sow the seed in the morning and the evening, in season and out of season for we do not know which has been ordained by the Lord of the harvest to grow and bear fruit. The harvest is not our responsibility. Our responsibility is to sow as many seed as possible in as many hearts and lives as possible. Like Jesus made His own body the seed from which the kingdom of God has grown world-wide, we need to finally sow our own lives as a seed for the kingdom of Jesus.

Prateep V Philip

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