Meditation John chapter 4: 35-44
1. Jesus said the fields are white and ready for the harvest. (V35)
3. One person sowed but other one reaped. ( v37)
4. Christ is sending us to reap what we never laboured sowing... thus entering into the other person's labour. ( v38)
5. Many Samaritans believed Christ for his prophesy on
that woman. (V39)
6. So the Samaritans be sought him to stay with them and he stayed there for two days. ( V40)
7. And many heard him speak and got convinced that he is Christ the Saviour ( V41, 42)
8. Then Christ departed into Galilee. (V43)
9. He said No prophet is honoured in his own country. ( v44)
LIFE APPLICATION:
Here Christ talks about a spiritual harvest, ie, saved people populating the kingdom of God. (V35)
I would divide this life application into two parts.
1. The need to be saved:
The WORD of GOD says,
The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
Jeremiah:8:20
Yes, My dear brothers and sisters, there is a time to be saved. If we miss it, we will lose our souls. Today is the day! This is the time of harvest.
Look below these verses to understand more,
When God turns the captivity of his people, there is an harvest.
Also, O Judah, he hath set an harvest for thee, when I returned the captivity of my people.
Hosea:6:11
Jesus says in another parable that the Harvest is the end of the world and the reapers are the angels.
The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
Matthew:13:39
And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.
Revelation:14:15
I will explain you further how God counts each soul as the sheaves of wheat waiting to be reaped.
A. The seed is the word of God.
But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
Matthew:13:23
Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
Luke:8:11
B. The seed enters our hearts and if we are a good ground we understand it and are born again.
Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
1 Peter:1:23
C. After we are born again we grow to give fruits worthy of God's glory.
But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.
Luke:8:15
So God expects us not only to receive the word of God but to bear fruit for his glory with patience.
A day of harvest is coming when we will judged for our deeds.
Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.
Luke:3:17
The sower and the reaper:
God wants to hire some labourers for his kingdom. The seed of the word has been sown by the sower . The sower being Christ himself.
He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;
Matthew:13:37
Ask ye of the LORD rain in the time of the latter rain; so the LORD shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field.
Zechariah:10:1
God rains his Spirit that each of the seeds grow into a grain ready for harvest .
Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
James:5:7
2. The need to reap:
Now Christ emphasises here the need for labourers who will go forth to reap for the kingdom of God.
Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few;
Matthew:9:37
Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.
Matthew:9:38
So Paul says that we are these labourers in God's husbandry each one of us washed and cleansed by the precious blood of Christ are hired for this reaping job.
For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.
1 Corinthians:3:9
We are to labour for the kingdom of God for the divine purpose of God to be fulfilled.
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
Mark:16:15
This is what Paul writes that it is not an option for us to speak the gospel, but it is a mandate.
For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!
1 Corinthians:9:16
More than anything he also emphasises us to live out this word.
Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.
1 Corinthians:9:14
So what do we get when we labour for the Lord?
1. We gather fruits for the eternal lives. (V36)
Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;)
2 Corinthians:9:10
And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it.
Matthew:21:34
The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits.
2 Timothy:2:6
But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.
Romans:6:22
We have fruit unto holiness and we will have eternal life... that both the sower and the reaper can rejoice. (V37)
We are not sowing, we are only reaping those that CHRIST has already sowed. So we are only entering into another person's labour. (something nothing to be PROUD about)
May God send forth more labourers to finish the good work Christ has started in us.
LIFE APPLICATION 2:
Everyone who heard Christ speak wanted him to abide with them. The WORD of GOD says he stayed in Samaria for two days and people who headed of him believed in him more. ( v39-42)
The WORD of GOD says,
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
John:15:4
As the word of God says let us abide in Christ that we can bear much fruits worthy of God's glory, that when Christ comes we can rejoice with him.
Do we want CHRIST to abide in us and we in him...? Let us examine our lives.
To GOD BE THE GLORY...Amen.
