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Time keeps ticking along while the sands of time keep moving. The world as we know it is bound by time. There is no way we can live on earth without time. Should we examine carefully how we use our time? Time used wisely can serve our purpose. Our purpose right here and now is to be made ready for God’s Kingdom. As humans we all wonder how much time we have left. Will you be ready for the return of Christ?
Here we are again ready to delight in another Sabbath. As we take time to ponder the events of the past week, we also take time to thank our Father for the multiple blessings He pours out upon us. During the last few days there was an unexpected death in the Victorian Church of God for which members received email notification. That was a shock. The South Australian congregation will miss Jan Pope. We last saw Jan on the Sabbath of 20th October 2018 as we made our way toward home from the Feast of Tabernacles. So very thankful we had some time to fellowship meaningfully just 3 months ago. We will always treasure the beautiful memories of time spent with Howard and Jan Pope who so generously and regularly visited Adelaide over the years on various Holy Days to fellowship with us.
Only days later it was discovered my email account had been hacked so that it can be used to send spam to others — after some checking this apparently occurred in August 2017 — however I had absolutely no idea until now. That was a shock too.
Then there were events happening around the globe, including the Kenyan hotel terror attack which we saw on the nightly news. Also shocking. More locally here in Adelaide, where the famous Tour Down Under is held annually every January. A 60 year old man riding his bicycle last Thursday morning was struck down with full force by a motorist who left him for dead. His bike was split in two. The hit and run accident is shocking as anyone can be in the wrong place at the wrong time through no fault of their own, but how anyone can leave a person on the side of the road dying like that is beyond me. My mind has great difficulty accepting this, unless the driver was intoxicated or drugged and therefore seriously compromised. The poor family left behind is suffering and distraught as he was here one minute and gone the next.
While all this occurred, our State has just suffered through an extreme heatwave for most of the past week. Some places like Port Augusta reached 52 degrees Celsius, which when converted to Fahrenheit is 126 degrees. Awfully hot...train tracks warp in these conditions, causing hazardous conditions for passing trains, which could become derailed. We are told there is more extreme heat to come next week. The threat of catastrophic bushfires places the entire State on maximum alert. A pyromaniac (fire bug) deliberately lit not one, not two, but three separate fires within minutes of each other, hoping to have his “thrills”. Never mind if people died. Thankfully he was caught by the authorities and no real damage done, this time. Still quite shocking though as it was not so long ago that I had to evacuate one Sabbath night due to terrifying bushfires in Sampson’s Flat in January 2015. Just one evacuation in a person's lifetime is quite enough.
What a week! And these events are just a “drop in the ocean” as it were in the scheme of things going on around the world under the sway of the evil one, whom we have known as the Adversary. Thankfully God only allows him, satan, a certain amount of havoc, chaos, and destruction — otherwise we know he would destroy us all immediately. Prayers for daily protection are so crucial.
Carpe Diem is Latin for Seize The Day!
You may have heard of this Latin aphorism, the principle known as Carpe Diem. This simply means to take hold of or seize the day. Conversely, the opposite of this is to waste time. How do we seize the allotted time left for us? It is very unlikely we will be granted another 15 years to add to our lives, like King Hezekiah. Imagine being given this extra time when you thought you were about to die! Pretty amazing isn’t it? Even more amazing is that God turned the shadow backwards on the sundial 10 degrees for Hezekiah in order to give him a sign to prove His sincerity and to comfort Hezekiah to know that the extension to his life will come to pass. You can read of Hezekiah’s incredible account in Isaiah 38:1-8. Some say “that time stood still” while others say that time did not stand still, but rather that particular day was extended by about 40 minutes. I guess it is too hard a concept to wrap our minds around, to accept that time actually moved BACKWARD. We will all get to know more about this when meeting Hezekiah in God’s Kingdom. Imagine seeing and speaking directly to Hezekiah — this gives me great excitement, like I imagine it does for you.
Fast forward to our time — we are living in the End Times (Matthew 24:14). Apart from attending to the necessities of life such as work, sleep, hygiene, nutrition and hydration, we try to plan out our days with wisdom. We can choose to emulate Christ and our Father, the Master Planner. Ask in prayer how to use your time most wisely. You will see just how God will reveal to you the best way to do this and exactly for your particular circumstances. It is like getting a specialised timetable that really works. All it takes is faith, diligence, and commitment but you must listen intently to what God reveals to you. Many times I find myself saying to myself after talking to God in prayer...“Now why didn’t I think of that?!” when the answer is so obviously brilliant. Then I smile and think to myself “because our ways are so far beneath His ways”, or like the Scripture says in Isaiah 55:9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts”. What a perfectly precise and excellent Father we have. We are so incredibly blessed to have this relationship with Him. Words seem so inadequate in these times, therefore the desire for obedience increases.
We of course study daily by reading the Holy Bible, and meditate at various times on God’s Word throughout the day when able to. Our time is fully committed on the weekly Sabbath in worship and praise to God along with attending services and the subsequent beautiful fellowship with our brethren. Most of us use Friday each week to shop, wash, cook, clean, and run errands in order to take care of everything in time for the Sabbath. So the rest of the week we concentrate on manageable portions of practical Christianity. This means doing good when it is in your power to do so (Galatians 6:10; Proverbs 3:27-28). We do not need to go out of our way to find it because God will ensure we have opportunity right in front of our eyes. We just need to be ready to recognise these opportunities. James 4:17 tells us...we need to do good or the right thing because we know to do so. If we recoil, ignore it, or do not do good by using self justification (Jeremiah 17:9), then we are committing sin.
Time is running out. We are closer to the Kingdom this Sabbath than we were last Sabbath. God the Father and Jesus Christ are watching us intently to see what choices we make during the course of each and every day. They desire most earnestly that we use our time wisely in order to redeem (making the most of) the time, because the days are evil (Ephesians 5:16). When we do this consistently until it becomes automatic or second nature, then we will be more prepared and ready for Christ's return to this earth. Starting with today it really could not be a better time to prepare. Wake up every morning and resolve deeply to show our Father and elder Brother just how much you desire to use your allotted time wisely. For this is healthy fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10-11). Can you imagine hearing God’s words to you one day in the future, “For now I know”, like Abraham, the father of the faithful, did all those years ago in Genesis 22:12? Abraham certainly had a healthy fear of the Lord in this situation.
Be fully convicted that no matter what anyone else says or does, you will stay the course and therefore be welcomed into the joy of our LORD. We are surely united as one, deeply desiring what was said to the profitable servant in Matthew 25:23 “His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord”. Godspeed that day, as this world desperately needs Christ’s return to usher in the Kingdom of God, with His perfect rulership. In the meantime, we simply do not know when our time will be up, so therefore we truly cannot afford to waste any time, as time is running out.