Jesus’ heart is with the lost. He aches over the lost. He weeps over the lost. He longs that all would come to Him and none should perish.

Matthew writes that Jesus had compassion on the crowds when he saw them.

Charles Spurgeon wrote about the word compassion: ‘This is said of Christ Jesus several times in the New Testament. The original word is a very remarkable one. It is not found in classic Greek. It is not found in the Septuagint. The fact is, it was a word coined by the evangelists themselves. They did not find one in the whole Greek language that suited their purpose, and therefore they had to make one. It is expressive of the deepest emotion; a striving of the bowels – a yearning of the innermost nature with pity.’

This is how Jesus feels right now about everyone in our city that doesn’t know Him.

We need this heart.

The issue, Jesus says, is not to do with the readiness of the harvest, but to do with the number of laborers. We must pray, and we will today, for laborers to be sent out.

But what moves ordinary people to join the army of God? What turns spectators into participators? What causes people like you and I to reach out, share Jesus, invite our world to know Him?

It’s looking with Jesus’ eyes, and feeling with Jesus’ heart. It’s seeing people – truly seeing people – and feeling God’s compassion for them. Weeping His tears for them. We need His heart for the lost. We need a supernatural impartation of compassion for the lost. We need His burden.

This is our prayer today. That we would catch afresh the heart of God for the lost in Hull. That we would rid ourselves of apathy and the contentedness with comfort – and we would go.