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April HeartBeat

By RICK Burkey

up your eyes and look at the fields for they are already white with Harvest”( John 4:35b, NKJV). This is something we have all heard or read numerous times. Have you ever thought about what it takes to get to that harvest?

As a teenager, I worked on a farm and learned a lot about the hard work that it takes to get the field ready for harvest. Before you can even begin to plant, you must prepare the soil. That means spending the time breaking it up, turning it over, and plowing it. Then you spend time removing any rocks or brush that would keep the seed from getting to good soil. Once the soil is prepared, you sow the seeds, but that’ s not the end of the work. You must cover the seed so it can take root, where it will die and bring forth new life. The beauty of all that hard work is that God gives it back in abundance. One single kernel of corn can produce 10 ears or more, and each one of those ears will easily have 100 kernels.

About now, you may be wondering what any of that has to do with motorcycle ministry. Well, if you think of the harvest field as the many rallies, races, and biker events that CMA members go to, it will start to make sense. As members attend new events, they begin to build relationships with the promoters and others in attendance. In a sense, the members are breaking ground. As time passes and more CMA members attend the event, the soil becomes increasingly broken and ready for planting. That is the moment when someone at the event allows a CMA member to talk to them about Jesus. In that moment, they may not accept Christ, but a seed has been planted. As committed members continue to show up, that biker won’ t forget what he heard, and he will start to see that CMA is really who they say they are. That is like a seed sown into good soil.

Take this as encouragement not to give up when you are going to an event but not seeing the harvest

. Remind yourself that the ground must be plowed and broken before a seed can even be planted. Maybe you are that one CMA member who is plowing the field for the next CMA member to plant the seed, and the next to water, so that finally there can be a harvest.

When a person accepts Christ, that overflowing abundance of joy will cause them to tell someone, or that drastic change in them will have people asking what happened. This is how one seed produces much fruit, and they, in turn, share what God has done in their life. CMA

Rick and Mary Burkey oversee the Northeast Region as National Evangelist.