There are times when God will want you to act right now and
times He will want you to wait. He may show you something that is coming in the
future, but tell you the time for you to act is not now. He may change things
up in your environment or your schedule, He may give you something new to do.
He will always prepare us for what is coming, but if we’re too busy living in
the future and not paying attention to what He is telling us to do right now,
we may not be prepared when the thing comes to pass that He told us about. Noah
is a perfect example of this – he heard from God to build an ark in a time when
no ark had ever been built and there wasn’t a need for one because the earth
did not know rain in the way it does now. And yet he patiently set about building
an ark because God had told him to do it. When the ark was finished, the rains
came, and Noah and his family were the only ones who survived. I wonder how
many other people God spoke to about that rain. Noah must have had to tell
people what he was doing because he would have needed to get the supplies and
may have asked other people for help. God may even have spoken to other people in
the way He spoke to Noah, but they may have been too caught up in their own
lives and thoughts and plans to listen. I know I have a problem with
procrastination – there are things that need to be done in my apartment and my
life that I know will take time and effort and sometimes – often – I just don’t
feel like doing them. I’d rather go out and take walks and go to the thrift
store and talk to people and spend time with friends. If I’m really honest it’s
a form of laziness, and something that I need to push through in order to be
obedient to God.
I’ve been wondering why it is that some of us listen to God
and some of us fight Him every step of the way. I know that spiritually each
one of us has our own appointed time for salvation, and that God knows each of
us so intimately that He knows when and how each one of us will finally let go
of our struggle with doing things our own way and finally let Him into our
lives. I also know that I was one of the ones who fought Him for a long time,
and I wonder now that I listen to Him and experience the blessing of listening,
why it was that it took me so long. There are some people who He had put into
my life who shared the message of His love with me, but I was so resistant and
so stubborn in that resistance! Even though my life was not an easy or a happy
one, I still fought to do things the way I’d always done them.
The verse for today that I get in my email was John 3:20-21,
“All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins
will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can
see that they are doing what God wants.” As I read that I started thinking
about the way I resisted God for so long. I never thought that what I was doing
was evil – I was just living my life in the best way I knew how. But on the day
of my salvation, when I was born again, I had a revelation of God through Jesus
Christ that opened my eyes to my own need for forgiveness. In the New Testament
reading I also get in my daily email, the chapter was Luke 23, which contains the
very same passage that the Lord used to expose my own darkness and help me see
His light. When Jesus is crucified, He speaks the words, “Father forgive them,
they know not what they do.” At the time that I was born again, I had been
dealing with some people who were so corrupt and so evil in the things they
were doing not just to me but to other people, and everyone I knew, even people
who were not Christians, had been telling me that I needed to find a way to
forgive them. When I read that passage in a little cartoon booklet tract that I found - something that He had put in my path to find - those were the
words I responded to – I said to the Lord, “I know you could forgive them when
you were on the cross, but I’m not you.” He answered gently and quietly, “You’re
not on the cross,” and in that moment I understood that I was a sinner just as
those people who were trying to do harm to me were – that there was not anything better about me than about them
at all – and I also understood that He was willing to forgive me at any moment
if I could also forgive those who were hurting me. And I understood
that His love is greater than any love I could ever know, because He loves us
all no matter what we choose – we can choose to turn to Him and be filled with
His love and mercy and grace, or we can continue to go on our own way, but no
matter what we choose, He will still love us. The only difference is that we will experience true joy with Him, so we are the ones who gain when we make the choice to put our trust in Him.
In Luke 23:39-43, there are two criminals who are
being crucified on either side of Jesus. Throughout His ordeal, He has been
continually mocked by people in authority and bystanders alike. In The Voice
translation we read:
“One of the criminals joined in the cruel talk.
Cynical Criminal: “You’re
supposed to be the Annointed One, right? Well – do it! Rescue yourself and us!”But the other criminal told him to be quiet.
Believing Criminal: Don’t you have any fear of God at all? You’re getting the same death sentence that He is! We’re getting what we deserve since we’ve committed crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything at all. (turning to Jesus) Jesus, when you come into Your kingdom, please remember me.”
Jesus: I promise you that this very day you will be with me in Paradise.”
Reading that today, after thinking about my own struggle
against Him and how my eyes were finally opened by His grace, I see the choice
that He gives us so clearly and how willing He is to forgive us at any moment
we choose to come to Him. Two criminals, two different reactions to Grace in
the form of a man. Two different choices in the very same moment. In neither
case does He condemn them, but when one recognizes his own need for
forgiveness, at that very moment, not later, not after a time of waiting, but
at that very moment, he has the promise of salvation fulfilled in his life.
There is no crime that we can commit that God cannot forgive
and there is nothing that has been done to us or that we have done that God
cannot heal. 2 Corinthians 6:2 tells us, “For He says, ‘In the time of my favor
I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’ I tell you, now is the
time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” We can choose at any moment to hear His invitation, and when we say yes, He will receive us with love.Blessings,
Jannie Susan
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