In 2012 the words just flowed out of my mind and through my fingertips like an oil gusher from a capped well. Literally, hundreds of hours were spend each evening pouring over the Word of God by not only reading it over and over, but also vigorously researching those things that I did not understand, as my goal to create each blog became clear. I read the King James Bible from Tecarta and the NIV from Tecarta comparing and contrasting, all the while looking for the Holy Spirit to light the way.
Digital Bibles are a sore subject to some, but for me, it opened a universe of deeper understanding by providing me with immediate access almost 6 millennia of history and commentary from before Moses until today. As we discussed last year, that's according to our time-keeping methodology; however, our God thinks in terms of lifetimes or generations. Since He is infinite, there is no time-keeping in His world, only the generations of all of his people starting with Eden. Six millennia divided by an average life span throughout history of say, fifty years, gives you 120 lifetimes. Think about it, 120 generations, plus or minus, from a higher perspective than ours that views all of that time (our invention), as a moment in eternity.
The Apostle Paul begins his letter to the Romans discussing what else, Time...In verses 1-7 he establishes who he serves and what he believes, including that our Lord Jesus was a "descendant" of King David. He also says that, make no mistake about it, He, Lord Jesus is the one prophesied in the "Holy Scriptures." He further states that even the Gentiles are called to belong to our Lord Jesus, including those at Rome.
Aren't you even mildly offended that Paul, a high ranking Jew before conversion, still represents for the Hebrew nation, implying that the Jews were and always will be the chosen people? It's kind of like a joke I was told back in my college days that paraphrased goes like this: Some new people were entering Heaven at the Pearly Gates all at the same time. Seems many of them knew each other during their earhly life and recognized each other on the other side of the gate. Well, they were hugging and kissing, basically causing a commotion. St. Peter went over to the group and told them to pipe down. When asked why, he said that all the Baptists were close by, and they still believe that they are the only ones in Heaven. I butchered it pretty good, but you get the point.
In verse 4, we get a message that needs to be seared into our minds, "and who (Lord Jesus) through the Spirit of Holiness was appointed the Son of God, in power by HIS RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD." This is what makes Jesus, the Savior for all of mankind that choose to "believe on" Him. It is an ironclad theological stake in the ground that says that all of the Saints in Christ are now on equal footing, no matter your race, color or creed. This is what enables Him to cleanse your soul. This is what He did for you to make you not only a part of the "chosen," but also your personal intermediary between your sinful self and El Shaddai, the all sufficient God. We know this because when God introduced himself to Abram in Genesis 17, He said, "I am El Shaddai. Walk before me and be perfect."
From there in Verses 8-16, Paul apologizes to the church at Rome because he has been delayed in visiting them, and further wishes he could have been their sooner. This is the conventional way of saying that he did not have what? TIME for them until now...So here we are back on the important subject of the how truly finite we actually are in the grand scheme of our brief existence.
So you say, "Jim, we all do the same thing with relatives, friends and even ourselves." We end up with little to no Time for them, and worse, no Time for yourself. Remember the film, "Armageddon," that featured Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck? The commander of the crew on their shuttle repeated over and over again, this same phrase: "No Time, No Time, No Time!!" All of their lives had been reduced to the seconds on a countdown clock. You see, Bruce Willis was going to blow up the asteroid and save the earth in under a few minutes. Truly, they had NO TIME...It was get out or die. Here's the difference. You have Time everyday and waste much of it, just like me. The Apostle Paul truly had a Time crunch. God was guiding him to 45 different cities. Paul was teaching and preaching as he kept up with God's will. Imagine your effectiveness for our Lord Jesus, if you had Him filling your schedule everyday, not you, your wife, your boss or Satan himself. Other than Pastors, Priests, Rabbi's, Missionaries and a few select, devout believers, we have God very near the bottom of our personal totem pole of priority. Generally we have 95% plus filled in for each day with "this" world stuff, before we even get there. We are mesmerized with getting up, going to work, breaking for lunch, coming home for dinner and then watching mindless entertainment on the tube. God gets our leftovers of Time, when and if we can fit him in...Do you see the irony of our use of how we use our Time. Lewis Carroll said it this way, "I'm late, I'm late, I'm late for a very important date. Hello, Goodbye, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!
Imagine taking whatever percentage of your day gets spent on the "next" world and doubling or tripling it for our Lord & Savior...Right now with your measly 5% or 10% for God, you cause a positive ripple in God's plan for you. If you doubled or tripled, you could create what a surfer lives for... 20 and 30 foot waves. Still more if you reversed the percentages of your live from 5-95 to 95-5, you would create your own Tsunami, affecting the lives and souls of millions with the help of God.
If you are a virtual couch potato for God, you need to wake up. It's so easy to be lulled into spiritual and intellectual complacency. I am proof positive, because I slept for 40 years before my God woke me up. Wake up, please, and joyfully give more TIME to Him. Right now you work an average of 3 days per week for Uncle Sam's Three Ring Circus, called government...Imagine what you can accomplish for El Shaddai, if you gave him the same amount of time?
The Digital Disciple
