John 4:35 “You may say, “Four months more and then the harvest” I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! Right now, they are ripe and ready for harvest.”
Jesus is recognizing men’s abilities to look at certain signs and seasons and then trying to predict what actions need to be taken. But He knew that our problem is that often we become myopic. The dictionary defines myopic as, nearsighted or shortsighted. I call this the vortex syndrome.
It’s something we can all fall into very easily. We become so preoccupied with a problem we’re struggling with, or our job, or family life, that these things produce a gravitational pull that pulls us inward so much that we are oblivious to more eternally significant things….
In the universe there are geometrically defined regions in space whose gravitational pull is so strong that even light cannot escape the inward pull. We call these area’s “Black holes.”
Sometimes in the life of a Christian, when the gravitational pull becomes inward, the inward force overwhelms the outward reach and the gospel of the kingdom suffers loss. If we are not constantly intentional in resisting that normal gravitational pull inward, we will be so locked into celebrating the victories of the past, and juggling the responsibilities of the present that we fail to set up the harvest cycle of the future. That future begins with all the opportunities that surround us now in the present.
A shoe company decided to expand their market into a large population in an area of South America. They sent a salesman to test the potential market. The man was there two weeks when he wrote the home office and said, “I’m coming home immediately this is a totally lost cause. No one in the entire area wears shoes! I will not waste my time anotherday!” The company dispatched another salesman who was more experienced to get a second opinion… When the second salesman got there, he discovered the same thing the first salesman had discovered. In only two days, they received an urgent letter and expecting the bad news they had received before, they opened it quickly and read this….“Please send me every shoe you can possibly ship, immediately! This place is a gold mine, and there are opportunities everywhere I go! No one here wears shoes!”
The disciples were judging the Samaritans based on Jewish tradition, which said that Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans…. (a little background here)…. Jesus’ disciples didn’t want to even be in Samaria. Had the decision been left up to them, they would have avoided the area completely. Anyone who’s been in church for any amount of time, knows the story of the woman at the Samaritan well. They may even be aware that the disciples were shocked when they found Jesus talking to this woman of ill repute.
So, if we get into the history of this national animosity… we find No good Jew wanted to go through Samaria. The Jews and Samaritans hated one another. (A lot like politics) The Samaritans were half-breed Jews, forced to intermarry with gentiles when Assyria captured the Northern Ten Tribes. During that time they added to the Law of Moses, and they were constantly harassing those in Judea. During the time of the Maccabees, they snuck in and desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem, so there was really bad feelings all the way around for they had perverted the most holy item to every Jew. Because of that hate it was unsafe for a Jew to try to travel in the area.
Jesus made a bee-line to the town of Sychar in Samaria because He sensed that there was something eternal that far outweighed the vortex syndrome that would love to have pulled him in. But that national and religious history of prejudice and offence, didn’t pull Jesus in and it didn’t stop Him from dealing with the greater issues of the heart and soul.
John 4:34–35 Jesus said, “This is what keeps me going….doing the will of the One who sent me, finishing the work he started. You look around you right now, and you suppose that in about four months it will be time for harvest. Well, I’m telling you to open your eyes and take a good look at what’s right in front of you. The Samaritan fields are ripe now. It is harvest time!’”
Many folks say, well, I’ll just live it in front of them and they’ll see my life and they’ll turn to Christ…..How’s that working so far for you? The lost are still lost…jails are full and church seats are empty…What Jesus is telling us is that we must be intentional about bringing them to Christ.
Some boys were in front of the school skate boarding, when we were setting up last week on Saturday. Winnie was talking to them, and they asked if she was a teacher. She told them that we were setting up to have church on Sunday and asked them if they would like to come. They’re answer confirmed what I’m saying here…. They said they had never ever been to a church! (that went right through me)
Statistics have shown over and over that around 84% of the population doesn’t go to church at all! A big percentage of the population will say they are Christians but don’t practice a Christian life style. If you apply those percentages to Key West, and Stock Island, there is a population of about 34,000 people which can go as high as 40,000 with the tourists, which means that thousands of folks do not go to church here, and most of those have never come to Christ to receive salvation.
Like the difference in the two shoe salesmen, one assumed that no one was interested in shoes because no one wore them. The other salesman assumed that every one needed shoes because no one wore them….
Is it possible that we assume folks are not interested in coming to Christ, simply because they haven’t. Or that they aren’t interested because they haven’t been interested before….
I just read a story of a Muslim woman who was in the morgue for 3 days, when she says Jesus came to her and asked her to take His hand, and when she did, she sat up in the morgue, went home and attended a Christian church. Tens of thousands of Muslims are turning to Christ every week. When we get intentional, God will find a way!
That one woman at the well, left and told her community about Christ and led her village to Christ. In John 4:39 “Many of the Samaritans from that village committed themselves to him because of the woman's witness: "He knew all about the things I did. He knows me inside and out!" 40 They asked him to stay on, and Jesus stayed two days. 41 Many people entrusted their lives to him when they heard what he had to say. 42 They said to the woman, "We're no longer taking your word for it. We've heard it ourselves and know it for sure. He is Savior of the world!"
A man named Joshua was depressed and had doing pot every day for 6 months. He heard that his favorite aunt had cancer and she asked him to be praying for him. Well Joshua hadn’t prayed in a long time, but he prayed anyway, and when he did God spoke to him and told him to go to church on Sunday. Josh never went to church. But his life was in such a mess that he decided to go anyway. On his way, God spoke to him and said…”Joshua, my love is all around you.” He felt what seemed like electricity go all through him and a white dove landed on the hood of his car. At church, the pastor asked for people to come for prayer at the end of his sermon, so Josh went down. A man came and prayed for him and he was going to leave, when God spoke again and said “don’t be afraid… I’m cleansing you of your sins… I’m taking away all of those things of the past.” He began to weep uncontrollably, as that same electricity began to flow through his body. And again the Lord spoke to him and said “Joshua, now you know I am real…you’ve heard about me since you were a kid…I am Jesus…I am the living God”… Joshua says that his life has never been the same since. All he needed was a chance….
It’s like the boy who came home soaking wet.
His dad said "Mercy Me Frank!" You look soaked to the bone!
"Yes, papa, I fell into the canal." His dad shouted…."Frank, those are the new school clothes we just bought for you?" Frank said.. "Yes, papa, I didn't have a chance to take them off." (Many folks just need a chance)
All over our Island community, there are folks like the woman at the well, who have an appointment with Jesus. The wells may be different, they may be the restaurant, the job you work at, the Grocery store, or the doctor’s office….but Jesus wants everyone to have a chance….
As I thought about the title of this message, I thought of the scripture, 2 Corinthians 6:2 “For He says, I have heard you in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured (brought help and relief) to you. Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation”.)
I submit that it is vital for each of us to keep our salvation up to date. If we understand that salvation means more than a sinner’s prayer and that It means health, wholeness, freedom and deliverance, then we also understand that those things need to be maintained. You can get into heaven and fail to enjoy the full salvation package you have received….
You can pull up to the gas station and fill up with gas, but it won’t be long until you need to fill up again. We can be saved, and yet neglect to stir up, apply and develop the scope and impact of our salvation.
When the Word of God tells us in Philippians 2:12 “Work out (Make full application of) your own salvation with fear and trembling”. It is admonishing us to not neglect the full benefits we have received in our salvation package. Don’t run on empty when you have received a full salvation!!!!
An 90-year-old Chinese man showed up at the Chinese railroad station. It was his intention to take a railroad trip, and he knew the price of his ticket should be somewhere around 12.5 Yuan, which would be $2 in U.S currency. Expecting to get quite a bit of change back for expenses, the old man handed the cashier a 500-yuan bill for the 12.5 Yuan ticket. Taking a look at the currency, the ticket master quickly handed it back and said, "I can't accept this." The old man was shocked. And he demanded to know why. Was it because the cashier didn't have enough change for such a large bill? No, So what was the problem? The cashier tried to explain, "I can't accept this bill because it was printed in 1943. she said, seventy years ago the country's founders, printed the currency. But the old currency was discontinued. She told him that his money, was no longer money. The bill which once was valuable was almost worthless today. It was only worth the history attached to it for a collector but it wouldn’t get him where he wanted to go”. Is your ticket current and is it going to get you where you are hoping to go?
2 Timothy 1:6 “Wherefore I put you in remembrance that you stir up the gift of God, which is in you by the laying on of hands. v7 For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind”…..Satan sends fear to undermine your power, your love and your sound mind….
Freedom belongs to those who continue to maintain their freedom…. the same is true with your deliverance and your wholeness….
Keep stirring it up, with confessions which are aligned with God’s word, with prayers, conversation and meditation that is founded upon and embedded with the word of God. Our minds must be continually renewed and filled with God’s thoughts and God’s intentions!
Ephesians 4:23 “And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; v24 And put on the new man, which is created to be in God’s image in righteousness and true holiness”.
We know that at any point and time our flesh wants to take control of our spirit and our mind, but God has made us to be ruled by our Spirit. It is within our Spirit that the image of God flows forth, to shape our mind and rule over the soulish man. The carnal or fleshly mind is the enemy of God and must be dominated and put under the Spirit of Christ within us.
When the great flood came and God told Noah to build the ark, those who did not enter perished, but those who came inside, had to remain inside in order to be rescued. No one decided to go for a stroll outside the ark, and just experience the world one more time….or the ark would have lifted above the flood without them…. Were there problems inside the ark…I’m sure there were….dideveryone get along perfectly….Hey, they were human!!! Did they love being shut up in there for 40 days and 40 nights with smelly, noisy, wild animals…. probably not!...But did they even think of jumping ship….I don’t think so!!!!
Revelation 17:14 “They that are with Him are called, and chosen, and faithful”.
This is the day to stir up the gift of God that is in us….Now is the time to renew our calling….Now more than ever before is the time for faithfulness Yesterday is gone….Tomorrow hasn’t come yet….Today is the best time of our lives to make the greatest difference!
We are living in the now, but we are touching eternity….Howeveryou choose to interpret 2 Peter 3:8, let me share with you, what the Holy Spirit spoke within me as I was preparing these thoughts…..it says… ”But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day”. I read that and I think that what we’ve been working on for a day, God has been working on for a 1000 years!
Also, It dawned on me, that on any given day, or our “now time”… there are things we will do or perhaps fail to do, that will have an effect and an influence on the next 1000 years. And there are things that folks did or did not do that will effect and influence us, here, a 1000 years later.
From right where you live, there is the potential to influence generations and change the world. Who could have known that the first wheel that was invented would revolutionize the rest of history…. Or the first person who cooked their meat over fire. It was almost 700 years ago that Guttenberg ran the first pages through his printing press and it sent shock waves around the world….Or what about the compass which was invented by the Chinese and ignited the age of discovery….And we recognize the use of paper money by the Chinese 2000 years ago which revolutionized global economics and ushered in international exchange….And I would have to mention the invention of steel 4000 years ago and mass produced in the 1840’s fueling the Industrial Revolution…But let’s not stop there, 5,500 years ago, the domestication of the horse is tied to human development and a new era of transportation… Magnifying lenses allowed mankind a glimpse at everything from distant stars and galaxies to the minute workings of living cells and bacteria….. The telegraph in the 18th century which opened the communications breakthrough….antibiotics, and the steam engine….on and on we could go…but these could never have been seen at the time for the huge effect on all of civilization which they became!
There are folks who are waiting in the future, should the Lord tarry, who will see what we do now as the new normal… and the way things are done in the future….
All of history is giving us a mandate to make our “Now” count!
How much more so when it comes to the eternal souls of men and women….
In Isaiah 42:8 God introduced himself as “I AM”… He didn’t say “I was”…because then He would have to be something other than He is right now! He didn’t say “I will be”… for then He would be something then, that we would have to wait for but that He isn’t right now!…. Oh No… He says “I am, in the past; I am, in the present; I am, in the future – I am the eternal now! Now is always the right time with me”!!!
Our past, our present and our future are all within the bounds of God’s now…. The blind man was healed now….the lepers were healed now….the dead were raised now…. The lame, the deaf, the dumb and the poor were all located in the bounds of His now!
Don’t live with I’ll do it later any longer….Hear it again….NOW IS THE DAY OF SALVATION! Now is He as fully God, and as fully powerful, and as fully glorious as He will ever be at any other time! (someone is getting this)
James 1:17 “Every good and perfect gift is from above, and comes forth from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness(inconsistency), neither any shadow (the slightest indication) of turning”.
Failure is met with success in God’s now…sickness is met with wholeness…confusion is met with clarity…lost is met with found… the past, present, and future are all met with redemption in God’s now!!!! All of us are imprisoned in time, but not God. We are incarcerated behind the bars of time, and we cannot escape it. But our God sits above it and is not subject to it, for He created it, and calls it to serve His purposes!
I remember as a teenager, I went hunting alone in a 1200 acre forest….I got terribly lost and walked for hours, when I realized, God isn’t lost, just me!! I prayed that He who sits in the heavens and yet was right where I was, in that now situation of lostness, knew the way out from the very point I was at, and would lead me to a highway, where I could get home. It was minutes later that I came to a main highway and was able to find my way home…
There is no place we can possibly go that He can’t help us find our way back… He is always there in all the “Now’s” of every place in our lives!
Others may see what we did wrong, when we blew it, when we really messed up this time… but God sees forever, and He sees all the twists and turns in all of our now’s that are still ahead!
All my moments can be God moments. He is timeless and yet He’s God of every moment. I have good moments and bad moments and in between moments. I have times I will remember forever and times I would rather forget as soon as they happen….But I can’t judge him, or His faithfulness by any moment in my life….but I must command my moments to align with His “I AM”!
Someone said that “Our time is like identical suitcases—they are all the same size, but some people are able to pack more into them than others”.
I think of those millions of microscopic organisms that can live in a single drop of stagnant water. In our biology class we peeked into their world with a microscope.. Have you ever imagined that as those tiny creatures were just swimming around by the thousands and thousands in that little drop of water… that some of them that are a little bigger than the others begin strutting around, feeling that they are smarter than the others, and then one of them is a philosopher, and he says: "Oh, all of you think you’re really something, but listen to me….there is a creature that could take this drop of water and just scatter it to the wind. Did you know that? Did you know there is a creature that could take ten thousand of our worlds, these drops of water, and just smash them with one hand? Did you know that?" "Why, that’s impossible all the tiny organisms say! That’s unimaginable! I don’t see any creature like that down here in this little world of our drop of water. I don’t see anyone like that – that can do that. That’s crazy! That’s idiotic! That’s inane! That’s stupid! And so are you for saying it!"
And they just say all kinds of things, you know. I can imagine one of them saying, "Did you know, if we were to take an army of ten million amoebas on this side and join with ten million protozoa on that side, why, we could just shake the whole earth?" And the philosopher would say, "Did you know there’s somebody outside of our drop of water, that could just crush all those armies in the blink of your 8 eyes!
I recall when David and Vicki called us to pray for Pepper, because he was going through a rebellious period… we drove to Sarasota (7 hours each way) so we could just do some spiritual warfare. Well we got there and got refreshed, and when everyone had settled down, I slipped into his bedroom to hear what the Spirit was saying…. I got up in the middle of his bed and prepared to pray the heavens down, and all I could do is laugh…I laughed and I laughed…I went out and got Winnie, David and Vicki, and we all got to laughing…. God said “Stop making mountains out of molehills…stop making the devil more powerful that he is….stop praying the problem… Just laugh at his puny efforts…laugh with me, because he actually thinks he can win…laugh, because greater is He that is in you than someloser running around in red long Johns!
My God is in the “NOW” …Why pray like He is in some future place, or past place. He said “I AM”!!!! I am always here operating in your now!!! When God waits, He’s right on time…When God delays, He’s right on time….
To a snail a mile is a long way, to Batman and Robin in a paper plane it is shorter, to Mighty Mouse it’s shorter than that, and to a super sonic jet it is shorter still, to a beam of light, it is instant. Sometimes it may seem like it’s taking a long time, but to God it happened yesterday….
To everything there is a purpose…Every leaf that falls, every tiny grain of sand, every drop of rain and every snow flake has a purpose designed by a loving Father. And if that is so of such inconsequential things like that….of how much more value are you and of what greater purpose has the Father designed for your life….
Matthew 6:30 “So then, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, how much more shall he clothe you, O you of little faith? v31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, how shall we be clothed? v32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. v33 But seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”.
