HELPING PEOPLE TO DRAW CLOSE TO JEHOVAH

God's Fellow Workers

Paul illustrated collaboration with God by referring to the cultivating of a field.  He wrote:  "What, then, is Apollos?  Yes, what is Paul? Ministers through whom you became believers, even as the Lord granted each one.  I planted, Apollos watered, but God kept making it grow; so that neither is he that plants anything nor is he that waters, but God who makes it grow.  Now he that plants and he that waters are one, but each person will receiver his own reward according to his own labor.  For we are God's fellow workers.  You people are God's field under cultivation." -1 Corinthians 3:5-9.

As God's fellow workers, we must faithfully plant "the word of the kingdom" in the hearts of people, then water  any interest shown by well-thought-out return visits and Bible studies.  If the soil,  the heart, is good, Jehovah will do his part by making the seed of Bible truth grow into a productive plant.  (Matthew 13:19, 23)  He will draw the person to Himself and to His Son.  In the final analysis,  then, any increase in the number of Kingdom proclaimers is due to Jehovah's work on the hearts  of people, making the seed of truth grow and drawing such ones to Himself and His Son.

Next time: Building Work That Will Remain

Watchtower, 2000