“Then He [Jesus] said to His disciples, “‘The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.’”1
Tradition says that the man who invented the game of chess was told by the Chinese emperor to name his own reward. The man simply asked that a grain of rice be placed on the first square of the chess board: two grains on the second square, four on the third, eight on the fourth, sixteen on the fifth, and so on, the grains doubling each time. The emperor quickly agreed, but was horrified when he came to the sixty-fourth square.
The only hope of mankind for peace for today and hope for eternity is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. If I tell one person about him, and we both tell another, that makes four persons sharing the Good News. By the time I’ve told twenty-one people, and if all the others do the same and so on, more than one million people will have heard the gospel in no time.2
Jesus started the entire Christian message with a motley band of twelve disciples. By Ascension Day it had grown ten times to 120. “A little over a week later, on Pentecost, it increased to over 3,000. By the time the last of the twelve died, there were an estimated half-million followers of Jesus Christ.
“That was at the end of the first century. By the end of the second century, this number had increased to almost ten million. By the close of the ninth century, there were 100 million Christians. Today, the number has grown to over one billion believers around the world. None of this growth would have been possible had Christians not been excited and supportive of missions or prayed to ‘the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’”3
Since going online in 1998 ACTS International has received over 21,000 salvation and re-commitment to Christ responses from around the world. These responses have come from Daily and Weekend Encounter and our gospel messages on the ACTS web site at www.actsweb.org. Many of the salvation responses have come from Daily and Weekend Encounter readers forwarding copies to friends, contacts and families.
Imagine if every one of our 207,000 plus subscribers to Daily, Weekend and Prayer Encounters would forward a suitable copy of Daily Encounter to one other person each month for one year, this would mean that 2,484,000 people would have an opportunity to receive the gospel in a non-offensive way. And what if each Encounter subscriber would forward a copy to one other person each week for a year? This would mean that 10,764,000 more people would have an opportunity to receive the gospel. And imagine if just one-fifth of these people would subscribe to Daily Encounter and send one copy each week to another person for a year, this would mean 111,194,000 additional people in one year could be reached for Christ. If Christians would “keep on keeping on” sharing God’s message, the spreading of the gospel would increase exponentially. With the invention of e-mail and the Internet this has never ever been easier to do.
Never have we had such an opportunity. God has given us the message and commissioned us—you and me included—to take it to all the world. He has given us the methods. All he needs is his people working together all doing their share to reach our world for Christ. Will you make a commitment to help spread the gospel and thereby be a part of what God is doing in the world today?
NOTE: To make it extremely easy for you to share Daily Encounter and ACTS Good News gospel outreach websites in a non-offensive way with family, friends and contacts, we have printed high quality, attractive business witness cards. See samples online at http://actscom.com/witness_cards.php. Try them. You’ll like them. I’ve given scores away and have never had anyone not accept it. Be sure to get a pack of 50 today.
Suggested prayer: “Dear God, thank you for your great salvation which has given me the gift of eternal life and a home in heaven to be with you forever—and saved me from eternal damnation. I am available for you to use to be a part of your plans and what you are doing in the world today. Please give me a passion for lost souls and help me to be as Christ to every life I touch—and use me to help spread the gospel in whatever way I can. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”
1. Matthew 9:37-38 (NKJV).
2. Dorothy O’Neill, Encounter magazine (Australia), March/April 2002.
3. Dennis Kastens, “Echoes of Eternity,” from the sermon: “Laborers Needed for the Harvest.”
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