Have you ever missed an opportunity which was really important to you? There?s nothing quite like that sinking feeling which comes in the pit of our stomachs when our hopes are dashed!
You simply can?t describe the desolation which comes when your dreams lie in ruins around you.
This is exactly what the people of God experienced in Jeremiah?s day. They faced a desperate famine. Their only hope was the summer?s crops. How they longed and prayed for a bumper harvest!
But we read in Jeremiah 8:20 that their hopes were dashed. Disease and drought blighted the harvest. Their crops failed again. All they could do was prepare for death. They were stuck with the terrible realisation that, yet again, their storehouses were empty.
Today the Holy Spirit is moving powerfully in every continent on earth. God is preparing the nations for a remarkable world-wide harvest. It?s time to roll up your sleeves and start gathering the spiritual harvest. We have an unprecedented opportunity to win people to Jesus. The Spirit is saying to us, ?Open your eyes. Look at the harvest. See the hungry people. They?re ready for reaping!?
The most important thing at a harvest time is to wait for the right moment, and then not to miss it! If you pick fruit before it is ready, you have nothing to eat. But if you don?t bother to pick it when it is ripe, the fruit rots and is wasted.
God is preparing an abundant harvest. Unlike Jeremiah?s day, he has been sending the rain.
The spiritual harvest has been ripening. The fruit is ready to be picked. And now God is asking if you are ready and willing to be a spiritual harvester. It must be tragic when there?s a bumper crop in the fields and there?s nobody to harvest it ? especially when there?s a desperate need for food!
Do you not say, ?There are still four months and then comes the harvest?? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. (John ?4:35-36)
But who is going to gather the harvest? Who is going to tell the hungry people where they can find food for their souls?
The lost are crying for help. They don?t know how to pray. They don?t realise that they should turn to Jesus. So who will share the good news that he is alive? Who will introduce them to the One who will meet their every need and satisfy the deepest longings of the heart? Will you?