3. We changed the way we prayed.
There is only one prayer Jesus ever commanded the church to pray. “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Matthew 9:36-38).
There are dozens of examples in Scripture of the disciples praying this (or a similar) prayer, and the church multiplied as a result of their prayers.
So many times, we pray for the lost, and there is nothing wrong with that. But it isn’t where Jesus told us to focus our prayers.
The problem isn’t the harvest. The problem is a lack of harvest workers.
That’s why Jesus commanded the 12 in Matthew 9 to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send the harvest workers out, and then he told the 72 in Luke 10 to do the same thing.
He said pray that the Lord of the harvest would send out the harvest workers.
So many Christians are content with their own salvation and feel no compulsion to go out and work in the harvest field. It’s interesting to note that the Greek word here for “send out” the workers is used 26 other times in the New Testament referring to “casting out” demons.
Why? Because that’s how passionate we are to pray. And it speaks to the spiritual battle going on for the hearts of harvest workers.
Jesus knows what he is doing. And if he says, “Pray that the Lord of the Harvest will send out the Harvest Workers,” why wouldn’t we do it?
