The fall season is always a great time at our church. There’s so much going on, and so many opportunities to be a part of, and make a difference. We look forward to our annual Couples Retreat. We have a fun, festive Sunday school and church-wide program. There is lots of food. There are plenty of fellowships. But one thing that this season does, is it gets us into “harvest mode” regarding reaching people.

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Besides the pumpkin spice coffee, cooler weather, and apple pie (a la mode), three highlights of this season for me are Friend Day, our Missions Revival, and our yearly soul winning training time. These help to put into focus what we should be doing all year long. The Lord gives us some great thoughts regarding the harvest in the passage below that we can all apply as we enter this season.
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John 4:35-36 Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.

First, we don’t have to wait until the Fall Program or Friend Day to “get after it” (as Pastor Meyers would say). There are people ready to be reached today. Reaching people is a yearlong endeavor, and we can start now. Last week, one of the men in our Sunday school class shared about a man who he heard had a brain tumor and was going to have surgery. What did he do? He picked up the phone and asked the man (a sports league teammate) about his eternity. Who can you talk to today?

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Secondly, we must open our eyes. I read a story today of a man who heard of a search party that was looking for a missing person. The missing person had wandered off into the forest and not been heard from. This man decided to join the search party. Not long after, he heard the group calling the person’s name. Confused, he asked, “Who are you all looking for again?” When they told him, he realized that he was the person they were looking for! These people were searching an empty forest for a man who wasn’t missing. This is not our case. Christ said if we look up, there’s a whole field of people right in front of us who are ready to be harvested. They’re next door. They’re at the store. They’re on our contact list. If we look, we’ll find people who need to be “found.”
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Third, there is a reward. When we get in on God’s harvest, there’s joy, fulfilment, and rejoicing. We get to be a part of what God is doing. We get to see lives changed. We get to see eternities altered.
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It’s harvest time. Let’s get at it!