Time - Swift Transition

It seems every time I turn around another week has past and I’m sitting at the computer preparing another bulletin for Sunday morning worship. This past Friday I really got to thinking about time as I discovered the month of June is nearly gone and that means half the year of 2018 will be history before we know it. Time has a way of making life pass quickly when one sits to survey the past. It seems like yesterday a young boy was thumbing through Popular Science, amazed and somewhat in awe, looking into the future with dumbfound thoughts and dreams. The year 2000 was forty years obscured and there was no way man would ever go to the moon. Well, he did go, several times, and the changes in our lives that were wrought about from the Space Program I still have a hard time fully grasping and incorporating into my everyday ventures; unlike the Millennial’s. Well, the turn of the century transitioned with a few digital bumps causing a near “stroke of midnight” panic in the uninformed, but we all survived. Then the year 2020 was the new buzz-word and the fear of an impending worldwide robotic revolution eradicating the human race. I don’t see it happening, but we still have two years to prepare. NOT!

[1 John 4:16] “The clock of time is wound but once, and no man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop; at late or early hour. To lose one’s wealth is sad indeed; to lose one’s health is more; to lose one’s soul is such a loss that no man can restore.” Thirty-nine people died while you read that short poem. Every hour 5,417 souls go to meet their Maker. Any of us could have been among them. Are you ready? Sing with me, “Time is filled with swift transition; naught of earth unmoved can stand. Build your hopes on things eternal; hold to God’s unchanging hand” (Hold To God’s Unchanging Hand by Jennie Wilson/F.L. Eiland). We each are allotted an equal share of 24 hours a day; no more; no less. We must redeem the time while we have it. We have no promise of tomorrow. “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth” (Proverbs 27:1). What must we do in order to redeem the time? We must start by considering what God has already done for us! He loved us while we were still sinners; He gave Christ who died for us (Romans 5:8); God’s grace brings the gift of our salvation (Romans 5:1-2). But that’s God’s part – What must we do? Yes, we have a part to play also! How do we accept the gift of God’s grace? Paul commends the Romans for their obeying the gospel of Christ. “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness” (Romans 6:17-18). We who have learned Christ have put off the old man; he is now dead; and we are renewed in the spirit of our mind (Ephesians 4:21-24). We have put on the new man who is created for “good works,” works that God has prepared for each of us that we should walk in (Philippians 1:4-6). The new man now joined with Christ has a new purpose in life (Galatians 3:26-27). There is great danger for not obeying. If we do not believe; accept; stand in; and not keep in memory the gospel (1 Corinthians 15), we reap damnation to our souls. Jesus will return and gather His believers (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18), but those who do not believe will not go with Him and enter heaven (Hebrews 3:7-19). “Swiftly we’re turning life’s daily pages, swiftly the hours are changing to years; how are we using God’s golden moments?” Is heaven ready to receive your spirit today?