Heavenly Father, You are the Lord of the harvest, the one who gives us sight like no other and who overcomes Satan’s efforts to keep us blind. I pray for those around me who are “ripe for harvest” but have not yet responded to Your work in their lives. Please use me any way You choose as a laborer in what You are doing. Allow me this week to see someone who is blind come to see You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Eye Exam 3And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. 4In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.—2 Corinthians 4:3-6 At one point in time, Paul was the blind man, incapable of seeing the truth of the Gospel. But he was so certain that what he was doing was right, he couldn’t see anything else. The fact that Jesus was God’s Son, the long awaited Savior whose promised arrival echoed in the Scriptures Paul was so familiar with didn’t make sense to him. He believed the idea of following Jesus was just foolishness. Nowhere is this clearer than in 2 Corinthians 4:4 which describes the spiritually-disabled person: “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers.” We don’t have to guess who he has in mind by “god of this world” (or “god of this age” (nkjv). He’s pointing out Satan to us as the cause of blindness. Just like Paul, you andIwere this person. Until Christ found us, we were wandering around clueless about our lost-ness. Until God’s grace intervened, we had no hope of ever hearing our Heavenly Father say, “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (Luke 15:24). We couldn’t say with John Newton, “I once was lost but now am found; was blind but now I see.” How shall we think about them if they can’t see it?“In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Satan doesn’t want people to see it. He wants everyone on that broad road. They are spiritually disabled. They can’t see. Those of us who can see must pay attention to what Jesus did and said: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest’” (Matthew 9:36-38). Knowing we see a lost world, we can “pray earnestly to the Lord” for His kind of compassion for those around us and for Him to “send out laborers into his harvest,” including us!—James MacDonald Journal In what ways am I praying about the “harvest” that Jesus saw around Him? What has God taught me recently about compassion?