DAY OF THE LORD

7 5 12 Day of the Lord 2 Pet 3 8 12

Scripture:    2 Peter 3:8-12 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. 11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.  

Note:  God is so different from us. He is not bound by the laws of nature or any type of limitation that affects mankind.  His ways are far above our ways and our ability to understand. He is a mystery and we can only understand what has been revealed to us by his Son through the power of his Spirit. One of the greatest differences between us and God has to do with time. From the moment we are born we are under time constraints. We live in time, sleep in time, work in time and die in time. Time is a great equalizer among mankind. All have it. Some may have more than others but we all have a measure of time allotted to us.

The average life span in the U.S. as of 2011 was 87 years. That is 31,755 days. What if someone had given you $100 for each day of your life? That would amount to $31,755 per year, and would have totaled $3,175,500 dollars during an 87 year lifetime. A lot of money!  If this example was true, each day would now have value…each day would have a value of $100. Now here’s what I’m getting to:  how are spending your time? Are you getting your money’s worth?

Time is a funny word. We can be ahead of time or behind the times. We can do things in our own good time or we can wait for a better time. We can set a time or we can let time fly. We can do things from time to time or we can bide our time. It can be said that we have had the time of our life or that we are living on borrowed time. We can be pressed for time and we can run out of time. We can waste time or redeem the time. We can do things when the time is ripe or we can miss out on things because time has passed us by. And in our working careers we heard this expression often, time is money.

 If time is really important and we only have so much of it, then at some point in time, no pun intended, we must give serious attention to how we spend it. In the future all of us will have to give an account to God for how we used the time he allotted to us.  Without question, we need to be spending our “time” wisely.

The good news is God has given us sufficient time to prepare for the end of time. Not only has he given us the time, he has also given us his Holy Spirit to enable us to master the time available to us.

So what do we do? How do we spend our time? What kind of people ought we to be as we look forward to the day of God coming?  We are to live our lives as holy and godly people. God will return in his perfect time. When he comes he will judge the earth and all those who from the beginning of time have rejected His offer of Life in His Son, Jesus Christ. At this time the mission of the church will be fulfilled. The gospel will have been proclaimed in the entire world.

·         It is out of his love and timing that God created the heavens and the earth.

·         It is out of his love and timing that God created mankind.

·         It is out of his love and timing that he sent his one and only son to pay the penalty for the sin of mankind.

·         It is out of his love and timing that he redeemed sinful man and adopted him into his family.

·         It is out of his love and timing that God established the church, the visible expression of his earthly presence.

·         It is out of his love and timing that he will destroy the work of Satan.

·         It is out of his love and timing that he will rightly judge those who appear before him at the Great White Throne of Judgment.

·         It is out of his love and timing that God does everything for he is the God of love and his timing is perfect.

Word from the Lord: “Beloved, examine yourself. How well have you spent your time, the time I have made available to you? Have you redeemed the time by trusting in me for your salvation? If you have, it’s time to rejoice. If not, it’s time to accept my offer, my life for your life. Time may be much shorter than you think.  Please listen to your heart and turn to me. I love you.”

Did the Lord speak to you today?  Why not write it down and claim it for His Glory.

 Prayer:  What do you need to pray to the Lord today? Listen to your heart. He loves you!