DAILY DEVOTIONAL – June 14, 2019
“Time Is Up”
Prayer: Our God and Creator, You are the Eternal One who has always been and who will always be. We worship and praise You for the amazing grace You have had on us in Jesus Christ Your Son. By grace through faith in His sacrificial death and resurrection in our place, You have ensured that our end on this earth is only the beginning of eternity with You. By Your Holy Spirit help us to live lives of thankfulness and joy. Amen.
Scripture: 2 Peter 3:8-11
But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. 9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. 10 But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment.11 Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live, 12 looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along.
Devotion – “Time Is Up”
Time travel has always been a popular topic of science fiction books and movies. What do you think it is that makes time travel so fascinating? I think we have all at some point wondered what it would have been like to during a certain time in history, or during some significant historical event. There are certainly those who would love to jump into the future, and no doubt, fast forwarding through the less desirable times in life would be nice. Of course, on the opposite end of the time continuum, as sinful people, we all have those times, decisions or circumstances in the past we wish we could go back in time and erase or do over again.
English writer Charles Caleb Colton said, “Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future has not yet come, and the present becomes the past even while we attempt to define it, and then, like the flash of lightning, at once exists and expires.”
I don’t think there is anything more elusive than time. Sometimes there never seems to be enough time, and at other times we would like nothing more than to hit the fast forward button repeatedly.
Christian philosopher and theologian C.S. Lewis said of the passing of time that, “The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does in life, whoever he is.”
It’s true isn’t it? We are all moving ahead at 60 min. an hour, however, despite our same traveling speed all of us reach the end at different times. We’re all moving at 60 min. an hour, but all of our futures will come to an end at different times. If we knew we only had one more week to live this life, what do you suppose that week would look like? Or if we knew that Christ was going to make His final return a week from today, would we use our time the same way we do now? Would we invest ourselves into the same things? Would we worry about the things we worry about? Would we be upset over the things we can’t seem to let go of? Would we lead the same life of discipleship we do now?
The apostle Peter said about time in our text for today, “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Do you suppose that if somehow we could stand outside of time as God does…if we could see life…our life…through the timeless eyes of God, would see life differently…would we live it differently?
Time is an equal opportunity employer. It has no bias. It is immune to influence and cannot be negotiated with. The most powerful governments cannot conquer it. The smartest physicists cannot take away from or add to it. Mega-corporations cannot put a patent on it. The rich cannot buy more of it.
Although we may be powerless over time, we serve the One God who created time and exists outside of time because He is before and after all things. He always has been and always will be. Not a nano-second passes without His divine approval, and time along with all things will come to end at the exact moment that He has ordained.
As Peter makes clear in our passage today, we as believers in Christ should live as though time is up. Our Lord Jesus gave up His life to ensure that we would have the secure hope of salvation and eternity, but also that we would be free to enjoy a relationship with God now, in Christ, by submitting everything to Him; including our time and all the plans we have on how best to use that time.
As people who have already been given eternity, Peter calls us to reflect on our lives, how we live them and how we use our time in this short life. Considering that time is short, and that the Lord will return literally at any moment to bring to an end this time and life, Peter asks us to consider what kind of people we should be and what kind of lives we should live. Peter does not call upon us to lead godly lives because we only have a short time to be good enough and get our act together in order to be saved. No, God calls us to live the life that He has already so graciously given us! In other words, God has made us His children, so live like His child! God has already make us citizens of heaven, so live like a citizen of heaven and not like a citizen of this temporary and broken world. God has already given us eternal salvation by grace through faith in Christ, so live eternally now!
This time and life we have is so precious, and so short my friends. Make the most of it, by handing every moment of every day over to the God who is the beginning and the end, and who has so graciously promised to make our joy complete both now and for eternity.
Celebrate every second of every day friends, remembering that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
