Tag: salvation

Time: God’s Gift to us

Have you ever thought about time? I’ve been listening to this song by Jill Paquette called “One of these Days” which has a line in it that says, “Your love brought time just what I needed, to see I needed you.” Wow! What a profound statement. Time, truly is a gift from God. Have you ever heard someone say “we are not promised tomorrow”? In many ways many of us do take tomorrow for granted, like it’s owed to us, even guaranteed. Many of us may even live like we have all the time in the world, like we will live for 100 years. When I look back at my own life, I see just how true this was/is for me.

When I was caught in drug addiction, I had no sense of time. I had all the time in the world to waste, so to speak. I also remember how Jesus intervened in my in life and gave me more time. You see, when I was living in my mess of a life, my goal in life was to make it to 30 years of age. I didn’t have very many dreams or aspirations. My life revolved around drugs and having a good time. I lived recklessly and foolishly. It’s funny, when Jesus began to move in my life, showing me that He was real, that He loved me and that He had a purpose for my life was when I was 29 years old. Then, Jesus saved me at 30, which to use biblical terminology, my old self died with Jesus on the Cross (Galatians 2:20) and my new self came to life with Him through His resurrection (Ephesians 2:6). So, technically speaking I did die at 30 with Jesus, but was give a new life and…more time. This is something I am eternally grateful for and is a good reminder that right now I am living on bonus time.

This time we have isn’t promised to us nor do we earned it. No, the time we have is truly a gift from God and I pray that by the grace of God during this time we would all come to truly see just how much we need Jesus in our lives. My prayer for you and for the many people right now struggling with drug addiction is that God would meet each one and give them the the gift of time to come to know Jesus and be saved by Him.


faithfullyTRUE

faithfullyTRUE

by Gerald T. Ching

 

In the moments of my deepest and darkest times

when life has overcome me with its worldly grief

and I am brought to my knees in desperation.

A loving Presence graces me and soothes my soul.

 

The long days that pass by these weary eyes,

flow into the dark nights that weigh upon my soul;

filled with stillborn dreams, stark

with the realities of a fallen world.

 

Enshrouded in this dimness

is a sparkling light of hope

that flickers and flares

within the deficiency of my character.

 

Thoughts and feelings get

pushed and pulled from my struggling soul.

Living in that sparkling light

an Angel of Christ lives

who battles daily to lift this heavy curtain of burden.

 

Quietly with purpose and in purity

he stands full of love, in Truth.

 

With a humble and pure heart

he stands in servitude, awaiting

the final transformation of my capricious soul

as goodness sweeps away the cluttering debris.

 

Sealing me with Your Holy Spirit,

a warm reassuring smile eases the furl of my brow;

brightening the gloom

that surrounds my existence.

 

From the darkness a little boy emerges

naked, frightened, broken, and shivering;

Your Spirit breaks through the barriers that bind.

There is sad joy in his little eyes

as a waterfall of relief rains down.

 

Pulled by an unseen magnetic field,

the darkness seeps away. A reassuring gesture

beckons him into Your heart, filling

the strange longing within his own heart

as he is drawn across to You.

 

In a deep embrace, his soul is finally united –

home at last. Giving way to a bright future

full of big dreams and surrounded by brilliance,

this all encompassing loving light

overflows with compassion.

 

In the moment of my deepest and darkest time,

when life defeated me with its worldly grief

and I stood at the doorstep of death,

I was swept away in the arms of Christ;

brought from the darkness and into the light, saved.


EXodus

When reading the Old Testament, I seem to always run into verses that talk about the Exodus of the Isrealites, when God supernaturally freed His people from slavery in Egypt. There are so many places where God specifically tells the Israelites to remember the Exodus and to make sure they tell their children and chidren’s chidren about what He has done: remembering the Exodus was foundational to the Israelites’ faith. God even tells Moses before the Exodus that the main reason for all of His actions is so that the Israelites will always remember that they are His people and He is their God (Exodus 6:7). A good exercise in literally seeing this is to do a search of the exact phrase “out of Egypt.” It’s amazing just how many times it is mentioned both by God and His people.

In translating this for us today, I believe that every single believer has had an “Exodus” moment, a time when God supernaturally freed them from being enslaved to sin. Objectively speaking, coming to faith means accepting the free gift of salvation that God provided through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, who took the full measure of God’s wrath onto Himself, on the cross for sin: this event is foundational to the Christian faith. Just as the Israelites were told to remember the Exodus, so we today are to remember our own “Exodus” because it is a reminder to us that through Jesus, God becomes our Father and we become His children. If that’s not enough, God literally works a miracle within every person who comes to faith in Jesus: they become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). In that moment, a person’s spirit becomes eternally fused to Holy Spirit where a believer is no longer controlled by their sinful nature, but is now controlled by Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9).

Subjectively speaking, this new reality will uniquely impact each believer because sin has a way of manifesting itself in all kinds of differing ways in a person’s life. For me this meant an “Exodus” from drug addiction. For you it may mean an “Exodus” from something else (lying, workaholism, pornography, bitterness, anger, emotional trauma, physical illness, greed, self-abuse, an eating disorder, a critical spirit, etc). It’s very important that we not only remember the objective “Exodus” of our salvation but also the subjective “Exodus” that is the specific freedom that God has given us through our faith in Jesus. There is not a day that goes by that I am not grateful to God for my supernatural “Exodus” from drug addiction. Whenever I think about it, my faith is strengthened. That’s why God made such a big deal out of having the Israelites continually reminding themselves and each other of the Exodus because it generated faith by reminding them that they will always be God’s chosen people and that He will always be their God, so too us.

When’s the last time you reminded yourself or told someone about the supernatural “Exodus” of your salvation?