At last night’s prayer meeting, Mark challenged us to pray that 2016 will be a ‘yield year’ for the church, a time when we reap the harvest we have sown and see the fruit of our labours. Looking at Is 43:18-21, we recognise that we cannot dwell on the past, even though we are grateful for all God’s faithfulness and provision and all He has already done. Instead, we long for Him to make streams in the desert and to bring many people to know Him. 2015 was significant in seeing the first baptism in our Market Street building, but we long to see many more people coming to faith and being baptised as we fulfil Jesus’s Great Commission and go and make disciples of all nations.
‘Yield‘, of course, has two separate meanings. One is ‘to produce or provide (a natural, agricultural, or industrial product)’, and it is this sense of producing fruit that we were mainly considering. But the second meaning (‘to surrender, to give way’) is also important, for it is only as we yield ourselves to God and humble ourselves before Him that we will be ready to receive all He wants to do in our lives. Surrender is the pathway to productiveness in God.
Let’s pray for our friends, families, acquaintances, work colleagues, neighbours and total strangers to be saved and for 2016 to be a fruitful yield year!
