12/05/2023
DECEMBER 5: HARD WORK IN THE HARDEST PLACES
ECCLESIASTES 9; JOHN 4; REVELATION 20
Wherever we go in ministry and mission, we either benefit from the labor of others or we contribute to the benefit of those who will follow. “I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors” (John 4:38). If we see fruit, we can be assured that it is not due solely to our dedication or vision but because others went ahead of us and did the hard work. Often prayer accomplishes this hard work. Regularly those who preceded us in ministry did this hard work. Always the Holy Spirit is brooding over the peoples and places of earth. There is nowhere that God’s Spirit is not laboring over the souls of men and women.
In mission to unreached peoples there is a longstanding debate: Do we concentrate our resources where there is great response? Do we send the majority of our workers to the [Unreached] who have been softened to the gospel by the hard work of our predecessors? Is it worthwhile to send missionaries to places where there is nothing to reap yet or do we wait until the Holy Spirit has softened hearts? Is our strategy to find where the Holy Spirit is working and then join Him there to harvest? The key in answering these questions is to understand that the Holy Spirit is at work everywhere. There is no corner of earth where the Spirit of God does not woo men and women to Himself. Our questions should not focus on where the Holy Spirit is working, because He works everywhere. Rather the questions should focus on where missionaries are not working, where the hard work is not being done, and if we are willing to do it. Jesus makes a case in John 4 that it is not a case of either/or but both/and. The harvest is ripe (v. 35), and one who sows and one who reaps may rejoice together (v. 36). Those who sow do not get to see the results of their hard work—thus, the difficulty. Reapers work just as hard as Sowers with the added bonus of seeing the fruit with their eyes. The Sowers must see it with their faith.
The missionary spirit of Jesus rejoices in sowing. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of hard work. Jesus calls and sends both Sowers and reapers, but there is no reaping without a generation willing to do the hard work. In these last days God still calls men and women to go to the hardest places to do the hardest work. We may never see masses of people come to Jesus, but neither will those who follow us unless we labor, sweat, cry, and beat our heads against the gates of hell day after day, year after year. It is brutal, but someone has to do it for all to rejoice. There is no ripe harvest outside of blistered hands, bloodied feet, and bruised hearts.
Brogden, Dick. Live Dead Joy: 365 Days of Living and Dying with Jesus . My Healthy Church. Kindle Edition.
