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Eternity 4 - Prayers That Work - Praying For Labourers
(Matthew 9:37-38 NASB) 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."
Since Bruce Wilkinson's book "The Prayer of Jabez" there has been a renewed emphasis on praying prayers from the Bible, prayers that work, prayers that God promises to answer. The next few issues of Eternity Daily Bible Study will focus on such scriptural prayers that get results. The first prayer we will look at is Jesus command for us to pray for labourers to be sent into the Harvest.
Wherever we go in the Kingdom there seems to be a labour shortage. The missionary comes to your church and pleads for more people on the mission field, the evangelist comes the week after and pleads for more people to witness for Christ, the inner city worker comes the week after that and weeps as she says how many people are needed to help the helpless and how deep the needs are and finally the pastor gets up the following week and asks for Sunday school teachers. The labour shortage is really a prayer shortage! We need to be praying the "Prayer Of The Harvest".
But when we do pray the "Prayer Of The Harvest"- God answers! In 1985 I was a Christian worker in a medium-sized church mainly composed of university students - and three of us met each week to pray. Among the things we prayed for was a "list" of people we felt should consider full-time Christian service and we very consciously prayed the "Prayer Of The Harvest" for them.
Over the months the list grew to around thirty names. Then an evangelist came to our church and preached on the topic of consecration to Christian service. Thirty people went forward, the exact same thirty names that were on our prayer list. When we pray God's prayers - we get God's answers!
How did we "do it" and why did it work?
Firstly there was agreement(Matthew 18:19),
Secondly there were "two or three" praying (Matthew 18:20)
Thirdly we prayed by name for specific people (John 10:3)
Fourthly we tried to pray not by our own judgment but by the Lord's leading
(Romans 8;26)
Fifthly we persisted for a number of months(Luke 18:1-8)
And sixthly we were very aware of praying a prayer that we knew that God wanted
prayed (Matthew 9:37,38 1 John 5:14,15).
If your town or ministry or church needs labourers in the Harvest why not pray this prayer each week for them? Why not "beseech the Lord of the Harvest" who is eager to see His Harvest come in? Pray God's prayers - and get God's answers!
Blessings,
John Edmiston
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