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Each month we’ll update this page with new requests. We invite you to come back regularly to find other ways you can pray for our partners and ministry around the world.
“What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” 1 Corinthians 3:5-6 (ESV
One reformer perceptively observed that all true wisdom can be summed up in two categories of knowledge: we need to know who God is, and we need to know who we are. In our verse above, the apostle Paul demonstrates how the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves work together to sustain lifelong faithfulness in gospel ministry.
About ourselves, we learn that we have a vital role to play in the advance of the gospel. Just as a field will not bear fruit unless a gardener tills the soil, plants seeds, and ensures they’re getting enough water, so the nations will not become disciples of Jesus if God’s people don’t go into all the world and preach the gospel. But as we go and labor in climates that are often harsh, we need to remember that we are not the world’s saviors — we are merely “servants through whom [people] believe.” So, how will these fields in which we’ve sown produce a harvest?
Paul’s answer is that God is the one who gives the growth. Knowing that God has the power to bring new life out of barren fields fills us with hope to persevere in teaching, preaching, and training others to do the same. As we work hard to break up the fallow ground where the gospel’s seeds have barely penetrated, God’s Spirit is able to rain showers of blessing in spiritual deserts, bringing life and light to those living in deepest darkness.
So we labor on rejoicing. We know that the outcome of our ministry will far exceed what we could ask or imagine, not because we are anything special, but because God loves to give growth to the seed of his Word. Perhaps the seeds we plant will not ripen until future generations. But wherever the Word of God is sown, God will, in his wise timing, bring abundant fruit for the greater glory of the world’s only Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.
This month, we rejoice that the Lord has assigned his workers in the vast fields of Central Asia. Let us join in praying for them as they sow the good seed of God’s living Word.
Please also pray that the Lord will work powerfully through upcoming workshops around the world:
We look forward to seeing how God will answer these prayers in the coming days!