Laborers

      How many people had a part in you becoming a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ?  When I give my testimony, I usually divide it up into four baptisms.  There were many people during my life that gave their own private testimony of the Christian faith.  Many of them were a witness to me by their faith and some by their actions.  It didn't become personal for a long time until people started using the Word of God.  I often share how my friend came to my teaching studio in the Navy and opened the door and began to recite First John 5:11-12.  He was just beginning the Navigator Memory System.  For me, it personally culminated in the two messages, back to back by Dr. Fred Brown and Dolphus Price.  Their messages were about people who thought they were Christians but really were not Christians.  The road was a long road and went for about 13 years before I submitted to the Gospel message and became a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.  First Corinthians 3:8-9 says, "Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building."   
     Maybe it was my friend, Ron, who planted the seed and then the string of countless believers who witnessed to me both by word and by deed.  They watered, and watered, and watered until the crop finally came in.  I believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.  The seed could have been planted even years before that at the Billy Sunday Tabernacle in Winona Lake, Indiana.  God was working on me and it took a lot of watering along the way.  It takes the labor of many believers to finally get the work done.  Some will be the planters, and many will be those who water the seed that has been planted.  Some will even be the one who pulls in the net.  I recall one question that has been put to many which says, "What is there in this world that is keeping you from coming to Christ right now?"  So, we all have a part in the salvation for many people.  Some you probably have never met but your involvement in Missions makes you one of the people who waters the seed.  Praise God today that we have the privilege to be one of His workers in a ripe field.