Good Thursday morning! If your treasure is stored up in stocks, the market fluctuations (mostly down) may have left you gasping for air over the last few days. What will today bring? The world is full of uncertainty; Christ offers complete surety. How are we to know this? Even if you set aside faith, read the Bible and ask: when was the last time God changed? We read about the beginnings, but God didn't change when Adam got the boot from Eden. Not long after their new life began, God asked Cain why his brother's blood cried out to him from the ground. Moses went from murderer to lawgiver, but God remained the same. David went from young hero, to adulterer, to murderer, to forgiven, and a man after God's own heart, yet God didn't make any changes to himself. The kings of Israel and Judah sometimes repented, but more often sinned, yet God kept all of his promises. Jesus arrived, but God still sat on his throne in Heaven. Jesus made payment for our sins on the Cross, but God didn't change.
We would like to think that with the ascension of Jesus that God somehow became, well, a little softer toward our sins. Perhaps since the cost of sin demanded by God has been paid, we want to think that our Lord will now wink at some of those little sins. However, we also know better. We can read about the terrible judgments in the Revelation and realize that God has not grown soft with age. But we also read right up to the end that his mercy only runs out when the final decision is made by those who would have nothing to do with God or His Son.
All that compassion and mercy for so many centuries toward saint and sinner alike. I look at the second chances to repent that I have had in just my own life. We read of the many opportunities for repentance that Israel enjoyed in the Old Testament. We look to the prophecies of what is to come in the Bible and see the effort God puts into giving people time to repent. We pray and yearn for America to repent and come back to God. Behind all of that is a God of mercy and grace. But like Israel did finally fall to the enemy and go into 70 years of captivity, we too know that God will execute the final judgments he has promised to the world. Until then, we marvel at how much time God has given us for repentance. We marvel at patience that must be... for lack of a better term, God-like in setting the date of the tribulation so far back that so many have a chance to live for Christ. Praise God for his great mercy and grace. If there is but one more person to be saved in this world, or if there are a billion persons yet to surrender to Christ, we know that God will wait for each and every one of them.
Have a beautiful new day in Christ!
Bucky
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