How Will They Know if We Don't Tell Them? What is Jesus's Heart for the Unreached and the Lost? What it Looks Like to Have a Heart for the Harvest.

In today's episode we're going to be going over the harvest and reaching the unreached. I'm going to pair this with some scripture, some definitions, and what Jesus's heart is towards the unreached.

First, I want to say a quick prayer: "LORD, I pray that you lift up every single person reading this right now. I pray that you open up our ears, hearts, and minds to you. Holy Spirit consume me, move me to do the will of God the Father. Work through me to make an impact in other people's lives. Work through me to make an impact in other people's lives and use me as a vessel for your work, LORD. I pray that you open up the eyes and the hearts of the people reading this to have the compassion that you have for the lost, for the unreached, and for the harvest. I thank you LORD for everything that you do and everything that you will continue to do. I love You with every ounce of my being. In Jesus' name, Amen."

So the first thing that I want to talk about when talking about the unreached and the harvest is I want to go over the 10/40 window. Some of you may be aware of what that is and some people may have never heard of it before, just like I had never heard of it before just a few months ago. So the 10/40 window is a rectangular region between 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north latitude. And it's stretching from North Africa to Japan. In the 10/40 window is where the majority of the unreached people groups are. An unreached people group is a group of people that either have very little or no access to the gospel. Most of them have never even heard the gospel before at all. In the 10/40 window, there's over 3 billion people that have never heard the gospel.

Now, as followers of Jesus Christ, it should be our goal to live and have a heart like Jesus. So if we have a goal to live and have a heart like Jesus, we should look into what Jesus feels about the unreached and the lost.

Let's get into some scripture about Jesus's heart for the lost:

"Today salvation has come to this house,” Jesus told him, “because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost." -Luke 19:9-10

This is where Jesus visits Zacchaeus.

 "I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who don’t need repentance." -Luke 15:7

 "I tell you, in the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents.” -Luke 15:10

“‘Son,’ he said to him, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.  But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” -Luke 15:31-32

I highly recommend that you go in and just spend some time to read all of chapter 15 of the book of Luke. So we can see from these verses here and from the whole chapter of the book of Luke, and there's so many other parts of the Bible and the New Testament that Jesus is passionate about the lost being found and about seeking and saving the lost.

Here is some scripture about God being the Lord of the harvest:

"Jesus continued going around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.” -Matthew 9:35-38

"Then he said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes; if they should drink anything deadly, it will not harm them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will get well.” -Mark 16:15-18

So this is the great commission. I know I've said the great commission on my podcast a few times, and I'm sure most people have heard Matthew 28: 19 if they've been to church a lot. But a lot of people don't know of Mark chapter 16 because a lot of times that is not preached as much where it goes into casting out demons and all of that. We can see right here that Jesus Christ was commanding His disciples to go out into all the world, not just into Israel, Judea, or the surrounding areas. He says to go into all of the world and preach the gospel.

You can see all of the different mission trips that Paul and other disciples had gone on in the book of Acts. If you haven't read the book of Acts, I highly recommend just Reading all of Acts. So mission trips aren't just a thing today. Mission trips started with the apostles back whenever Jesus said, "go out into all of the world and preach the gospel." That is still a command for us today. It didn't stop with the apostles. God is the Lord of the harvest and the harvest is abundant. There are plenty of people out there that haven't heard the gospel. There are plenty of people out there that need Jesus, but the workers are few and we have to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers.

We also have to be people to go out and be sent just like in Isaiah 6 where Isaiah says, "Here I am Lord, send me ." If you have that heart to go out and to reach the unreached and to reach the harvest, tell God, "Here I am LORD, send me." I said that to the LORD and now my life has completely changed. So a little warning, if you do say, "Here I am Lord, send me," be ready for him to send you. And if you're not ready, just take a step of obedience every step of the way. God just wants willing, obedient vessels to work for Him and His will. That is all. If you're willing and you're obedient, He can do miraculous things in you and He can do things that you would've never even imagined that He could do.

Okay, real quick, I need to interrupt this episode because I have a huge announcement. Thanks to a lot of your support and generosity, we have surpassed the 65% of the goal before the deadline of January 31st for the summer mission projects. So that is my mission projects to Brazil, Paraguay, and Thailand. I'm just overwhelmed by the generosity of some of you, and I just love you guys so much. I'm so grateful and appreciative. As of now, I am well on my way for the 100% of the summer mission projects to be fully funded by April 1st. We have raised $6,180 so far for that, but we still do need $2,070. The deadline for the 100% for the summer mission projects is April 1st. So just until the end of this month, if you feel led to partner with me in this, I always need prayer warriors. So if you're a prayer warrior and all you can do is pray, thank you so much. Please pray for me

- If you feel led to give financially, you can go to https://give.globalventures.tv/ and type in my name (Lorena Espy) in the search bar. Then click on "donate on Pushpay," and then you'll go fill out the form and make sure in the memo line that you put my name.

- Thank you guys so much in advance if you chose to partner with me financially. I am so grateful for you guys. I truly could not do these mission projects without you guys. So I just want to thank you again so much for your generosity and all your prayers, love, and support. I just love you guys so much.

Okay now let's get back into reaching the unreached..

Okay, so we've gone over the 10/40 window, what an unreached people group is, and scripture of the heart that God has for the lost and for the unreached, and that we are supposed to go out into all of the world and spread the gospel.

So what are some ways that you can reach the unreached? Also what are some ways that you can get involved in the harvest here?

Ways to reach the unreached:

1. Go on a mission trip.

   - You can go on a mission trip with Global Ventures, which is the place that I'm going to for school. But there's plenty of different organizations that do mission trips. So you definitely don't have to do global ventures. That's just where I go with my mission trips. I'm going on four mission trips this year and I'm so excited. But that is one of the best ways to reach the unreached is to go on a mission trip. If you've always wanted to go, here's your sign right now to go on a mission trip.

2. To fund a missionary.

   - You can support people and partner with them that are going on mission trips. And again, there's tons of organizations that you can choose from, but I am a missionary. So if you want to be a part of reaching the unreached and being a part of the harvest, but you just physically or right now, it just isn't in the books for you to go yourself. Funding a missionary is a great way to partner in, to be able to get involved because whenever people help support me with going on these mission trips, I send them newsletters, I send them updates, I send pictures and tell 'em about all the salvations and healings that happened. And also you're able to pray with me and I can tell you specific things to pray for and I will pray specifically for you as well. So we can do the prayer partnership and it's just a really great way to be involved. Get your money in there to the unreached because there's so many people that need to be reached. But also in order to reach people, it does take funds. There's airfare, there's hotels, there's traveling through buses and different things. So it does take money to go and reach the unreached. So that is another great way.

Now you may be thinking, "Okay, that's great, going on mission trips, reaching the unreached. Now how can I reach the harvest here in my hometown?"

There are so many people in America just in your hometown alone that need Jesus that are lost and we can't forget about those people. So in order for you to reach those people, it's very simple.

1. Go out and spread the gospel.

   - I know if you've never done that before, that seems very daunting. But honestly, with spreading the gospel and just evangelizing to people, it just starts with a conversation. Just be one of those people that starts conversations with people. Trust me, I know ,if you're an introvert like me, that seems really hard. "Like what do you mean? I'm supposed to start a conversation with someone that's wild. I don't start conversations." That was me and I'm still working on this. This is something me and God are still working on. But yes, you can go out, have conversations with people, ask them, "Do you have a faith?" The best thing to do if you can take a few minutes to talk to someone and get to know them, and then you can kind of gauge where they're at and then you can ask them specific questions of what they believe in. If someone looks like they're hurting or in pain, a great way to evangelize to them and spread the gospel to them is just ask them if you can pray for them and that'll open up a conversation for you to speak about Jesus to them. So that is a big way, and it's a very obvious way, but it's something a lot of people do not do. I'm not condemning anyone because I was this way too. But just going out and just having conversations with people and spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, the simple gospel of how sin entered into the world, we were separated from God, and then God didn't want us to be separated anymore so He sent His one and only Son to die on the cross to forgive us of our sins. Whenever we ask Jesus to come into our hearts, He saves us. And then you can lead them into the prayer of salvation if they've never done that before.

2. Get plugged in to a local church.

   - There are plenty of different things that you can do in local churches, depending on the church, a lot of them will have where you can volunteer to do outreach in your community and get plugged in that way.

So those are very important things to do. Going out and reaching the unreached through mission trips by either going on a mission trip or funding a mission trip. And also, I'm not saying one or the other because both of these are very important. And also spreading the gospel to people in the grocery store, walking down the road wherever you're at, just having open, genuine, loving conversations with people and let 'em know about the love of Jesus and ultimately getting them to the point of prayer of salvation. Now every time you speak to someone and have a conversation, it's not going to lead to the prayer of salvation, but just having conversations and spreading the love and light of Jesus is a way to reach the harvest right here in your hometown. And then also getting plugged into a local church, doing outreach through a local church, volunteering and being the hands and feet of Jesus.

So I hope this episode helped you guys. And if you haven't been involved with the local church, if you haven't been involved in reaching the unreached or just spreading the gospel of Jesus, this is your call right now to go and get involved in some way. Doing that in all of the ways would be great, but start where God calls you. Pray to the Lord and ask him what it is that he wants you to do. Pray to the Lord of the harvest and ask him to send people to the harvest and ask him, Lord, am I a person that you want to send to the harvest? Or if you have that heart for him to send you, ask him to send you and he will do it. Our God is so good, so gracious, and so faithful, and He just wants our obedience. He just wants us to be willing to do His will on earth. He wants us to have that compassion that He has for the lost and for the unreached. And so start today in whatever capacity that is, start getting involved, start reaching the unreached, start getting involved in the harvest and letting other people know about Jesus Christ. Because if Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, then you know that the very most important thing in this world is Jesus, that the greatest gift that we could ever receive is Jesus. And how would we not want other people to know about that gift? Especially people that have never heard about it before. Why would we want to withhold such a great incredible gift from them? We shouldn't want to, and we should do everything in our power to reach as many people as we possibly can. All right, that is it for today's episode.

I love you guys so much.

Never forget to choose faith over fear.

-Lorena Camille (Faith Fuels My Fire)

p.s. If you'd rather listen to Faith-based, spiritual growth, mindset, and mental health tips, then check out my podcast. There I will share my personal experiences, stories I've never told before, and bring you along with this hot mess life of mine. New episodes every week.

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Scripture taken from The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible®, and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers, all rights reserved.