Thoughts for Life: #4 God is Preparing Harvest for You

Dr. Wesley L. Duewel- Your prayer for world harvest can be more effective today because God in His sovereignty is coordinating world trends to make rapid fruitfulness available to His children.

If we will put priority on prayer and obedience, this can be earth's greatest harvest time. Not every Christian is called to go. Not every Christian is able to make a substantial financial contribution to the work of Christ's kingdom. But there is no limit to what any Christian may accomplish through prayer! (Google image, Person praying at sunset)

Earth's Population Explosion

Statisticians of world population growth tell us that earth's population at the time of Christ was about 250 million. It took over eighteen hundred years, or unto about the year 1850, of the total population to reach one billion.

Eighty years later, approximately 1930, world population rose to two billion. By about 1960—only thirty years later—world climbed to three billion. Four billion was reached about 1975.

By the end of 1986 we pass the five-billion mark, and next billion my be added in less than ten years. Earth's population has exploded so fast that the billions who must be reached for Christ almost overwhelm us. How can we catch up? Only by multiplying harvest through prayer.

Rapid Urbanization

God is moving people to the cities of the world to enable us to reach them more quickly. Throughout the world the villages are static and dying, since the first to suffer in famine are the villagers.

The prospects of enough to eat, education, health services, and job opportunities available in the cities are beckoning the young and ambitious.

The exodus to the cities is a phenomenon that has accelerated in the 1980s. The greatest urban migration in the history of the world will occur during this decade and the next. It is estimated that one billion people from Majority World countries will migrate to the cities during the 1980s alone.

Note these examples: Mexico City is growing at a rate of 80,000 per month. Twenty percent of the population of Mexico resides in Mexico City. More than 34 percent of all Argentines live in Buenos Aires. And more than 50 percent of the inhabitants of Uruguay live in Montevideo. In addition, about half the babies of the world are now born in cities.

Cities are ripe for spiritual harvest. But the ripest time ever is now. Why? In the first ten to fifteen years after new city dwellers arrive, they are more responsive than at any other time. While living in the villages under the scrutiny of family, members of the caste, friends, and village priests and religious leaders, it is difficult for individuals who hear the gospel to step out alone.

Upon reaching the city, they are comparatively rootless and often restless and disillusioned in not finding the new home to be the longed-for utopia. Liberated from the surveillance of relatives and religious leaders, those individuals are vulnerable and ripe for the gospel message. It is crucial that we reach them now.

Within fifteen to twenty years the major urban migration will be complete, and people will have put down roots again. More than ever before in earth's history, now is God's hour to work and to pray. Prayer is the only adequate way to multiply our efforts fast enough to reap the harvest God desires.

Our Young World

Thanks God for the comparative responsiveness of youth. The vast majority of those won to Christ in our land or in any land receive Christ in their youth.

Statisticians tell us that we are living in a time in which world population on the average is younger than every before Half of the population of Latin America and Asia are now twenty years of age or below. Forty percent of the world is now under fifteen years of age.

The population is exploding so fast that the next twenty-five years more children will be born than have lived from the days of Adam until 1960. Seven percent of the entire human race from Adam til now is alive today!

While the exploding population of Majority World countries makes theirs a young society, in another twenty years the Majority World is expected to begin aging like the Western world.

The opportune time for reaching responsive youth is during our generation. That's why the call to prayer given by the Holy Spirit to the church is stronger and more urgent today than ever before.
(Chapter two, pp. 16-18)

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Let's pray-

" Father in heaven, please replace our fear of Your Holy Spirit with a love, joy, and peace that is as priceless as our stubborn ways are worthless." (ODB 2/3/2020)

Today's Bible verses-

Psalm 40:1-3 (NIV) "I waited patiently for the LORD; He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD."

Psalm 13:5 “But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.”

Today's quote-

~ Daniel Ryan Day- "Just as Jesus wanted the Jewish people of his day to be free from the written and unwritten burden of what was presented to them as 'following God,' I think Jesus wants you and me to be free too—to realize it's not as complicated as we make it out to be.

Reflecting Jesus means responding to His love with love for Him and others. Reflecting Jesus means reading and interpreting the Scriptures—not as a rule book, but through the lens of God's love made available to us through Jesus. Reflecting Jesus means sharing this freedom and hope with others so they can be released from their heavy burdens and find a yoke that's easy and a burden that's light." (Our Daily Bread for February 2020, Discover the Word radio)

Words of wisdom-

~ Our doubts, perplexities and sorrows are to be brought to God's Word. We're to then lift our hearts in prayer to the Eternal Spirit to guide us in our reading, to open our understanding, and to unveil our eyes to this divine well-spring of life.

Today's guest post-

The Chicken and the Egg

Andy Hollifield

"How does a chick get out of an egg? One peck at a time.

Chicks are confined in tight spots that get tighter all the time. Instinctively, the chick does the one thing it's capable of doing: pecking. With enough persistence, the chick frees itself and steps into a big new world it never imagined possible. One thing I find interesting is no animal or bird I know of that lays eggs pecks the egg to let their young out. Exiting the egg is something the chicks have to do for themselves."

List of recent sermons of CFC ministers. CFC Potsdam NY church has a live service at 10 am Sundays for shut-ins.

If for some reason you can't make it to the church you usually attend, click on the above link, and still get fed!
CFC Madrid NY is also now streaming Live at 10:15 on Sundays!

Jean's blog (Click to see snippets of the 7 recent posts)