The Laborers

The Laborers

“The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray
the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest.”

Luke 10:2

Sometimes the smallest things leave the most lasting impressions. That’s what happened to me last week when I visited the construction site for Zion Ministerial Institute’s new bible school. Laborers working in the searing heat of the tropical sun were passing buckets of cement up two stories, bucket brigade style, to pour into forms for the concrete pillars that would be the main supports of the building. It wasn’t how hard they were working that caught my attention although they certainly were. And it wasn’t how difficult the conditions were or the sacrifice being made for $7 a day even though both were readily apparent.

No, it was the fact that many people, students, staff and visitors alike, would enjoy the fruit of their labors for many years to come. What they were doing was going to be lasting; it was going to be lasting in importance, lasting in the difference it made for the school and lasting in having a part in bearing fruit for the kingdom of God. In a world in which so much is disposable and in which so much time and energy are expended on temporary pleasures and pursuits, the perspective of what they were doing was both refreshing and challenging.

Paul wrote that “our work will be shown for what sort it is”. The Message Bible warns us that “eventually there is going to be an inspection of our work” and that “the inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won’t get by with a thing.” If we live for today and settle for the temporal, we can expect that the heavenly inspection report will not be very complimentary. But if, on the other hand, we invest in the future and build for the eternal, looking to make a lasting difference, we can expect that the Lord who sees in secret will reward us openly.

The thought of “the Lord who sees in secret” was highlighted that day by seeing laborers whose head and face were almost entirely covered by scarves to protect them from the scorching sun. For all practical purposes, they were unrecognizable. In a similar way, we may labor in obscurity in an area of ministry or in our secular occupation but God sees and He’s the only one who counts. And the hard work and the sacrifice part of their labor only reflect the fact that building something that will make a lasting difference in other lives is much more costly in terms of what is required of us.

Let’s beat God to the inspection and take a look at how we are spending our time, talents and resources. Let’s make sure that the investment we are making with our lives is making a lasting imprint on the lives of others.



God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church