23 MAY 23 Tuesday: A Closer Walk Devotional
“The Lord now chose seventy-two other disciples and sent them ahead in pairs to all the towns and places he planned to visit. These were his instructions to them: ‘The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into the fields.’” Luke 10:1-2
This is one of my favorite passages for disciple-making. Up to this point, Jesus has modeled what ministry will and does look like. They have heard Jesus teach and preach. They have seen how he interacts with people from all kinds of backgrounds whether poor, rich, healthy, sick, lost and found. The disciples needed to see how Jesus really lived among them.
They saw really nice and good encounters with people who wanted to know how to be made right with God or desired to be healed. They also saw difficult encounters with those that rejected the Master’s teaching and were offended to the point of hatred. Many wanted to kill him like the prophets of old. Jesus told them in Luke 10 that there will be people in the places they would go who would reject them. Jesus gave them instructions to deal with that.
The men learned that Jesus was already planning to go to the locations he was sending them. They got a chance to earn their PHDs, preaching, healing, and delivery. These patterns for ministry would serve them well in the years to come. Before they started this short mission, he told them to pray. The scope of ministry for them and us for that matter is huge. If you are not working in the harvest field you won’t understand this passage or care.
In the first outing back in chapter 9 there were twelve and now seventy=two. They have multiplied, but seventy-two disciple-makers are not enough, there needs to be more. Where do you get them? Jesus says that you ask for them from the Father. He will give them more, out of the harvest that they are entering. Their harvest was the villages and towns around 146 of them, but ours is every nation and tongue of the world.
Are you praying for more disciple-makers? Are you one?
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