Change the World
Can you recall a time you have been lost? I was recently invited to venture with a friend into the Saskatchewan countryside to experience the sheer loveliness of autumn on the prairies. I accepted the invitation, although I did not know where we were going.
I took in a variety of flatland wonders as we drove. I marvelled at canola swaths piled high, row upon row, as well as golden wheat fields and hay bales with dancing leaves moving across the fields. I still didn’t know where we were going, but the radiance of the ride was deeply satisfying. Harvest season was underway.
The idea of harvest, as described in the Bible, can refer to our mandate to make Jesus’ love known to others. However, producing a spiritual harvest is not only about influencing others for God, but is also directly linked to our personal righteousness. Righteousness isn’t something we produce or plant – it is where we are placed by grace.
In 2 Corinthians 9:10 Paul writes, “Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.” In Christ’s church, growth doesn’t mean more people, programs or participants. Growth happens, and the harvest is enlarged, when God’s people become more and more like Jesus.
Ephesians 4:15-16 says, “Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.”
As our drive through the flatland continued, I began to grow weary and unsettled, wanting to know the destination. Similarly, as we remain committed to increasingly resemble Jesus, there will be seasons we feel disoriented, disillusioned and discontent. In those seasons, Paul instructs us: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). Our personal dedication to progressively reflect Jesus is of paramount importance – because there is a harvest of people desperately seeking to encounter him through you and I.
My Saskatchewan tour took me to a stunning landing place where the hues of the setting sun touched water, fields and bushes with radiance. There were combines moving and dust glistening in the air and the harvest was nearly complete.
As you look to October…
May you have the patient endurance to continue allowing Christ to form His life in you. May you experience abundance as the Holy Spirit produces a rich harvest inside of you.
Be assured, as you do, that your destination will hold blessing for you, and for those who will encounter Him through you this fall. After all, Jesus said this is where we are going… We are going to change the world.
