Lesson 31: Prayer provides Laborers, part 3
The other blessing to be asked for will not be less. Every believer is a laborer; not one of God’s children has not been redeemed for service and does not have his work waiting. It must be our prayer that the Lord would so fill all His people with the spirit of devotion that not one may be found standing idle in the vineyard. Wherever there is a complaint of the want of helpers, or of fit helpers in God’s work, prayer has the promise of a supply. There is no Sunday school or district visiting, no Bible reading or rescue work, where God is not ready and able to provide. It may take time and persistence, but the command of Christ to ask the Lord of the harvest is the pledge that the prayer will be heard: “I say unto you, he will arise and give him as many as he needs.”
Solemn, blessed thought, this power has been given us in prayer to provide in the need of the world, to secure the servants for God’s work. The Lord of the harvest will hear. Christ, who called us so specially to pray thus, will support our prayers offered in His name and interest. Let us set apart time and give ourselves to this part of our intercessory work. It will lead us into the fellowship of that compassionate heart of His that led Him to call for our prayers. It will elevate us to the insight of our regal position, as those whose will counts for something with the great God in the advancement of His Kingdom. It will make us feel how truly we are God’s fellow-workers on earth, to whom a share in His work has in downright earnest been entrusted. It will make us partakers in the soul travail, but also in the soul satisfaction of Jesus, as we know how, in answer to our prayer, blessing has been given that otherwise would not have come.
Prayer: Blessed Lord, You have this day again given us another of Your wondrous lessons to learn. We humbly ask You, give us to see correctly the spiritual realities of which You have been speaking. There is the harvest which is so large, and perishing, as it waits for sleepy disciples to give the signal for laborers to come. Lord, teach us to look out upon it with a heart moved with compassion and pity. The laborers are so few. Lord, show us how terrible is the sin of the lack of prayer and faith, of which this is the token. And there is the Lord of the harvest, so able and ready to send them forth. Lord, show us how He waits for the prayer to which He has bound His answer. And there are the disciples to whom the commission to pray has been given: Lord, show us how You can pour down Your Spirit and breathe upon them, so that Your compassion and the faith in Your promise shall rouse them to unceasing, prevailing prayer.