Matthew 9:35-38

Matthew 9:35-38

And Jesus was going around through all the cities and villages while teaching in their synagogues and while proclaiming the Gospel of the kingdom and while healing every disease and every sickness.  And after seeing the crowds, He experienced deep compassion regarding them because they were having been harassed and they were forcefully cast away – like sheep while not having a shepherd.  Then He says to His disciples, “On one hand the harvest is great.  But on the other hand the workers are few.  Therefore pray to the Lord of the harvest that He should send out workers into His harvest.”

Thoughts for Today

First Thought:

In what appears to be a verse that is largely for transition we get a three-fold expression of Jesus’ normal work.  As Jesus went about His ministry, he taught the people.  As He went throughout Israel, He proclaimed the kingdom of God.  As He went from place to place, He allowed people to experience healing.  This is what it means to help bring people into relationship with God.  They need to hear about it.  They need to be taught deeply about it.  And when the kingdom comes into their life, they will experience healing.

How well does your life imitate the life of Jesus?  When you are going about your life, are you proclaiming the kingdom, teaching people about it, and helping people to find healing in their life?

Second Thought:

As Jesus goes about His ministry, He sees the crowds.  He sees their waywardness.  He sees how they are tossed around by the world and by their own shifting desires.  He sees the empty quests for peace and happiness.  He knows what each of us also knows: the world is full of emptiness.  The world is full of fleeting things.  Without relationship to God, our life becomes a pursuit of things that are only ever in our grasp for what seems like such a short time.  Without God, we are like sheep without a shepherd.

When have you experienced the fleeting nature of the things of this world?  How is your life different in Christ?

Third Thought:

Here is an interesting thought.  As Jesus went about the face of the world, He saw how great the harvest was.  He saw the people who needed to be reached.  And God – in the form of Jesus – asked for help!  As God, He could snap His fingers and force us to all obey.  But He doesn’t, because obedience under those circumstances shows no love and no relationship.  So God wants to reach us through relationship; which means He needs our help!  The same God that created the universe and brought each of us into existence tells us to ask so that we might be used by Him to accomplish His will!  That’s a really cool invitation.  That is something god did not have to do, but He does it anyway because He wants us to be involved!

Have you ever thought of this passage as being a passage where Jesus asks for help?  Why is it meaningful to you that God would ask for help of sinners like us?

Passage for Tomorrow: Matthew 10:1-7