A prayer based on Matthew 9:35-38.

<aside> 🙏🏻 Our God, We praise You that You are gracious and compassionate, that You are full of love and mercy, We praise You that You take no pleasure in the death of sinners, but desire that all would repent and come to the knowledge of the truth – the truth that Your Son, Jesus, lived, died, and rose again to rescue people from the wrath to come. We rejoice that we have experienced the wonder of being saved by You, forgiven of every way we fall short of Your glory in thought, word, and deed, adopted as Your children with You as our Heavenly Father, and full of hope because one day we will be welcomed into a new creation where we will enjoy the blessing eternal life with You. Father, none of this we deserve, none of this we have earned, all is graciously given to us when we put our faith in Christ.

Lord of the harvest, We pray that by Your Spirit You would fill us with Your compassion. Compassion that looks upon the world around us as Jesus looked upon the crowds. As people in need. In need because they are lost in their sins, spiritually helpless, and in want of a shepherd to love, care, protect and provide for them, because they do not have You, the Lord, as their Shepherd. In need because they don’t have the comfort of knowing that Jesus has promised to be with them, both in this life and through death itself. In need because they will not dwell in the house of the Lord for ever with all its abundant blessings, with goodness and love following them all the days of their lives. But as well as seeing the need, we pray that we would see possibility too. That lots of the people we rub shoulders with could become followers of Jesus. That the harvest is plentiful. To believe that the gospel is powerful to save people. To be confident that You are still at work drawing people to Yourself, opening their hearts so that they can respond to the good news with repentance and faith.

But gracious God, if people are to believe in Christ, they need to hear about Him. Workers are needed, yet they are few. So, we pray to You to send out workers into Your harvest field. For You to raise up more workers who will build up the church and who will go to people who have never heard the name of Jesus. We pray that we would be willing to be some of those workers and that You would give us opportunities and boldness to speak about our Saviour. As a church we pray that You would give us the desire, the resources, to be involved and play our role in training up the next generation of gospel workers. That we would help those who are called and qualified to grow in their knowledge of the Scripture, their Christ-like character, and their skills and gifting for ministry.

It is our desire that we would see Your kingdom grow as Your church multiplies and matures. So be pleased to answer our prayer, as we pray again to You, the Lord of harvest, send our workers into Your harvest field.

For Your glory.

Amen.

</aside>