A year is birthed. We smack it’s backside and it cries. Born to trouble as sure as sparks fly upward, we humans are.
What else can we expect of a holiday that claims to mark the passage of something so ethereal as time? I got up this morning as always, same routine. The world still looks and feels the same as yesterday did at this same time. It’s all vanity, as Solomon says, this going out and coming in and all the trappings. Only those of us still biding time on earth care a bit about it. If you go to a cemetary and listen in on all the conversations going on there, no one seems too concerned about health care, terrorism, stimulus packages or how they spent the passage of the new year. In fact, the worldometer website told me yesterday that 92,000+ humans went into their eternity on December 31, 2009. I don’t think they were too concerned with what time it was, considering their time was up. And someday all of our time will be up. We are all in line to meet our Maker sooner or later. Why don’t people live like this is true? I firmly believe that God hard-wires in us the will to live and survive. If He didn’t, we wouldn’t give a thought to jumping in front of a bus or taking poison. So, the will to live is a gift. But it must be balanced with the awareness of our mortality and an accountability to a holy God.
The Lord gives us many chances in each 24-hour period to look up, to acknowledge something greater than ourselves, something beyond our control. He allows us to feel pain and longing, wonder and humility. It’s just that so many suppress those truths by giving themselves to foolish pursuits via an over-developed obsession with self. Romans 1 tells us that we all know that there is a Creator, we just prefer to go our own way and drag as many along as possible with us. Even the believer can fall into the trap of getting caught up in this life to the point where they refuse to acknowledge that time is short. Bible prophecy is so maligned today and left out of most churches because Christians are calling the shots in the church – tell us what we want to hear, give us what we want in a church – and not allowing the pastor to teach hard things, things that may rock our world.
Reality check: the signs of the times are here. All around. Jesus is coming soon. Does that rock your world? It should, by golly. God gave us signs because we so easily lose our way in this life. Everything I have expected in the last 30 years of prophecy watching is here. The sign of Israel, the EU powerhouse, global government, electronic global money system, the great falling from the faith, phenomenal increase in knowledge – and I may be leaving something off. But no matter, it’s time to wake up from our slumber, throw off those things that trip us up, and run this race to win. His appearing is closer than it was yesterday.
Today is not a holiday. The news stories today are just a carry over from yesterday. People’s problems are the same when they wake up on January 1. There are no real fresh starts outside of becoming born again by the Spirit of the Living God. His mercies are new every morning, that’s the great news. Walk in the Spirit today, tell someone about the love of Jesus. Then, tomorrow, get up and do it all over again. Maranatha.
WHEW! All I can say to this is, AMEN…and thank you for your insight.
Super article Mare! If you don’t mind, I’d like to borrow it? Thanks.
Ron
Go for it – all I ask is that you put my name as the author.
Bless you Ron…mare