Harvest

The apostle Paul was totally yielded to the movement of the Spirit of God, and He recognized the importance of prayer in seeing the power of the Lord expressed. In Ephesians 6, he writes:
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;
18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints--
19 and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel,
20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

We can rejoice that all around the world, God is moving in the hearts of people who are open to what He would desire to do in their hearts. Some need salvation, others need to experience God's healing and restoration in a variety of areas of their lives. He will also use those who already know Him to facilitate ministry to those who don't.  Our motivation to serve the Lord can be increased because of how we see Him at work.

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In John chapter 4, Jesus is responding to the people's request for physical food - He adjusts their thinking to examine things spiritually. We can find these verses:
34 Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.
35 Do you not say, 'There are still four months and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!
36 And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.

The impact of what occurred less than a week ago on the campus of Auburn University is certainly continuing to reverberate, and there is rejoicing about how God is moving in the hearts of young people. It was seen and experience at Asbury and other college campuses.  We are seeing God inviting people to come to know Him; and that's a challenge that people of any age can embrace.

What has been occurring, I believe, is part of a greater move of God that is taking place around our world.  This Friday on The Meeting House, you will hear from James Davis, who leads the Global Church Network, which is training and equipping Christians to go, as Jesus directed, into all the world, with a strategy designed to fulfill the Great Commission.  It's powerful stuff.

And, we serve a God who invites us to come to know Him by accepting His Son.  When people respond, sometimes it can be with great fervency and volume.  Such is the case in an obscure African nation called Guinea Bissau.

A CBN.com article by David Hoffman says:

Guinea Bissau is a northwest African country with a population of 2 million people. Somewhere near 70% of the population is Muslim, and in recent years, Islam has been gaining more and more ground. Only 11.7% of the country identifies as Christian. Right now, in Guinea Bissau, Islam is making a strong push for religious and cultural dominance, but at the same time, God is moving powerfully.

Very recently, World Harvest, a ministry led by Evangelist Jacob Ebersole, held several outreaches across Guinea Bissau. I became aware of this recently through a social media video of thousands of young people storming the streets and singing praises to Jesus.

Hoffman writes:

A large portion of Guinea Bissau has not yet been reached by the Gospel. The nation falls within the 10/40 Window which is a geographical area of countries that are the "most unreached with the Gospel". An unreached nation is one in which many of its inhabitants have never had someone share the Gospel with them.

With the current "Islamic evangelization" push into Guinea Bissau, Christianity, already a minority in the country, could begin to diminish. Christians in the nation are taking this very seriously and are beginning to rise up in boldness to proclaim the Gospel like never before while they still have the opportunity and freedom to do so.

One example of this occurred after a simple prayer meeting on the crusade field when thousands of teenagers spontaneously began to take to the streets in the capital city of Bissau. They proclaimed the Gospel and sang worship songs from one end of the city to the other. The young people in the nation are on a mission to take their nation back for Christ.

Through the crusade events in this country, over 18 thousand people accepted Christ as their Savior.  Energized young people went to other cities to organize crusades.  An associated crusade by World Harvest in Zambia resulted in some 45,000 salvations.  World Harvest also conducted a crusade in Peru.

Now, as CBN and The Christian Post report, the ministry is planning an outreach in the United States.  The Christian Post said:

Jacob Ebersole, founder and president of World Harvest, told The Christian Post in an interview that his organization has been planning to hold the upstate South Carolina event for over two years.

"The team already formed for this is pretty significant," said Ebersole. "In Jesus' name, we're going to see a move of God start there that will spread through the whole state of South Carolina. What happens beyond that, I'll leave up to the Lord."

Ebersole added: "We try to make sure we do everything with excellence, and I think what's happening is people are starting to notice, and they want to be a part of it. And so, our team is growing, and now it's like, people from all around the world that are coming on board to be a part of what God is doing through World Harvest."

But, just like Auburn Men's Basketball chaplain Jeremy Napier told us last week, prayer and local church involvement are key elements in seeing the hand of God move. He responds to the prayers and faithfulness of His people. The Christian Post quotes Jacob Ebersole of World Harvest, who said, "We're handing the fish over to the local church." He added, "The key to it, though, is the work that we do with the Church leading up to the crusade...So it's six months of time with the pastors preparing them for this harvest and that's really the follow-up system. We come in with the infrastructure, but it's the heart cry that the pastors have to follow up with these people that we care about."

We can also examine our own level of devotion and expectation.  We can be open to responding to God as He calls us and provides opportunity for us to be involved in His work in bringing people to Himself.  Reports of God at work can inspire us and motivate us to be willing to obey Him.