Sunday, September 29, 2013

The Time Of God's Favor Is Always Now

My schedule for writing got all turned around because of a trip I needed to take for work this past week. I usually write in the evening to post the next morning, but for most of this past week I was writing in the evening to post that same day. I thought the Lord was changing things and that they’d stay changed in that way, but this morning He gave me a word to share that He wants me to share now. Who knows how my schedule will go in the future, but for now I have a word that He wants me to share so here I am writing in the morning again even though I posted just last night.

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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