Luke 10

10:2 - "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into the field." Since I work with churches and have for the last 15 years I know that there are a lot of times when the work seems overwhelming. There is so much to do and so little help most of the time. And if you are anything like me, when you need help you work harder, get more frustrated and try to get way too creative. Jesus says that when there is a ton of work just ask and He will provide more help. Wow! You think we'd take Him up on that. Would you pray with me for the next 2 weeks, each day, that God would raise up more workers for the kingdom work at The Oasis? Hit the COMMENT button and let me know if you will be joining me.

A caveat - The very next verse after Jesus tells us we can pray that God will send workers He says, "Oh, by the way, I am sending you..." We are the first answer to that request, so if you aren't serving yet or not at the level God desires get ready to be invited into the game.

10:6 - If someone were to come to your house would they believe you "love peace" by the way you are living? Would they see it in your kids faces? Would they hear it if your window was open? Would they feel it if they spent an afternoon with you? Would they see it in the way you are living? Paul repeatedly opens his letters with the phrase "Grace and peace..." so isn't it reasonable to assume as Christians that we are not living in God's will if we do not exercise His peace, especially in our homes?

10:20 - Take some time today and for those of you who know Jesus and walk with Him, rejoice over the fact that one day you will see Him in heaven.

10:27 - Love God and others with everything in you. Hold nothing back. Love way out over the edge. So what if you get hurt a little. Life is lived to love and be loved and when you do that life is full. Without pain you might not fully enjoy peace or hope or laughter. Love with everything in you and your life will be better. We wait to love and therefore we wait to live.

10:40 - What are you distracted by? What must really be done? See, we get distracted by a lot of things. We have a lot of different choices for worry and some of us take a little of each. It's like we are at a buffet and so we decide we need to take some of each dish - worry about bills, weather, kids, marriage, schedule, relationships, the yard...... But Jesus says while there are a ton of things to pick from when it comes to things to worry about, there is really only ONE THING worth spending our time on. And haven't you noticed that when we load our plate down with all the offerings of worry one of the first things we begin to wonder is Does God even care? Here I am all loaded down with a million things to get done and I wonder if God even cares? God does care, but it is our priorities that are messed up, not God. God cares enough to tell you to stop eating everything and just sit at His feet and let Him set your priorities. How many times have we blamed God for our own poor way of living. If we would trust Him enough to simply go to Him with no other agenda and ask Him what He wants done, everything that needs doing would get done and get done with a great heart. We lose our days and live in stress because we won't listen to God.

Love, Michael