Jump Start # 3981
NOTE: We will have a very special Jump Start announcement on Friday. Be looking for it.
2 Corinthians 6:2 “for He says, ‘At the acceptable time I listened to you, and on the day of salvation I helped you.’ Behold, now is the ‘acceptable time,’ behold, now is ‘the day of salvation.’”
We have come to the last day of this year. There will never be another A.D. 2025. We open up our new calendars and begin filling them full of plans, vacations, appointments. Was the year good? Was it hard? We’ve seen new faces in the congregation. We’ve seen those who made the commitment to follow the Lord. We’ve seen those joining hands and hearts in marriage. With tears, we’ve said goodbye as dear ones have passed on through the doorway of death. Triumphs and tragedies. Blessings and trials. Beginnings and endings.
Time is a interesting element of our lives. We have many “time” words such as: over-time; half-time; full-time; atomic–time; night-time; local-time; good-time; bad–time; wasting-time; lunch-time; bed-time; time-out. There are so many different ways to count time. We count years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and even seconds. To an expectant mother, nine months seems like forever, yet to a distance runner, half a second seems like forever. When you are at school, time seems to stand still. But when you are on vacation, time seems to fly by. No one has been able to create more time in a day. One cannot store up time for another day. The busy CEO has the same amount of time in a day as the bored teenager. Time during a movie moves at the same speed as it does during a Sunday sermon.
In our Bibles, the word “time” is found more than 700 times. Felix was waiting for a more convenient time and in our verse today, Paul declared that “now” is the acceptable time.
An old hymn written by James Black begins, “When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and time shall be no more…” You and I have never known a time when time was no more. Time seems to be the master of our lives. We hurry so we won’t be late. There is a time that the flight leaves. There is a time worship begins.
Time is essential because it is limited. There is only so much time. It is essential because it is a gift of God. Each day is God’s gift. It is essential because once it’s gone, it’s gone for ever.
When time is no more. Give that some thought:
First, we won’t be in a hurry to go to some other place. Have you noticed how we always have some place to go to. When worship is over, we have to go somewhere. When the game is over, we have to go somewhere. When the holidays are over, we have to go somewhere. Always on the move. Always having to go some place. That’s our lives. But, when time is no more, we will be in eternity. There’s no other place we go. We won’t gather up our belongings and hurry out of Heaven because we need to be some other place. There is no other place to be. We’ve never known that experience. How comforting and refreshing that sounds. Finally, at a place where we belong.
Second, we will realize what is really important. Boy, we get that scrambled up down here. Work. The house. Schedules. Have to do this. Have to do that. Busy. Busy. Busy. But, when time is no more, we’ll see what really mattered was our walk with the Lord. Did we make a difference in the congregation we were a part of? Did we help some soul see the Lord? A clean house, getting to the dentist every six months, catching all the ballgames on TV, hitting all the financial marks, won’t matter in eternity. What is really important? When time is no more, we’ll learn.
Third, it will mean that God has sent His Son and the world as we have known it will be no more. A gathering of all will take place. Books will be opened. A judgment follows. It is then that we will realize that a day is a thousand years and a thousand years is a day. Time means nothing on the other side. “When we’ve been there 10,000 years,” is something that we won’t understand.
In many ways, it sure seems like Jesus walked the earth a long time ago. Two thousand years is a long time. It is when you are governed by time. But, from Heaven’s viewpoint, Jesus was here just last week. The flood? That’s was just a couple of weeks ago. Heaven doesn’t measure things the way we do down here.
Someday, we will be where time does not matter. We’ll be in a place where time is not counted. Time won’t exist. So hard for us to understand. For now, we begin a new year. Will it be like this past year? Will it be better? Will it be harder? Faith sure makes the difference.
Roger