God's Timing is Right

“Today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts,” (Hebrews 4:7b).

The ticking of the clock impresses upon us the urgency of time, of which God would not be our willing prisoner. He is not passively waiting, drumming his fingers while we remain undecided about what to do with Jesus.
As humans, we tend to lock ourselves up in time and duty. In the process, we imagine we must wait before we come to Jesus; wait until we are good enough to serve him, wait until we are strong enough to please him, wait until we are humble enough to move him.  In other words, wait until we are able to overcome our wretched selves by ourselves.

This is not the “waiting upon God” the Bible makes reference to, it is looking inward in unbelief instead of outward to God in faith. Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking, and the task gets harder. Somehow, we manage to paralyze ourselves waiting for somebody, anybody (except Jesus) to show up with a set of jumper cables and spark us into action!  There is only one good thing that can come out of this spiritual conundrum if we are willing to recognize it. The bondage I describe can make us hate our condition and long for Jesus to deliver us. It can make us want to surrender to God today. If that’s the case, then the Spirit of God has done His work. 

Repentance toward God is turning away from ourselves and turning toward Christ in faith allowing Him to accomplish his will in us through the power of the gospel. It is a reliance on the Spirit of God in Christ and not ourselves.  It is a lifelong exercise empowered by Christ, not a one-time laurel to rest our self-confidence on.
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Jesus calls us to come to him as we are Today, believing in his power to make us what we ought to be. Only then will we understand Christ is our reward, not because of all we do for him, but because of all He has done for us. We are the prize He died and rose again for. Be blessed to serve him freely, no longer a slave to sin.

by Toni Babcock
​​Minnesota, USA -  info@grace-lines.net