Monday, January 18, 2010
Download MP3 (right click to save)
It really wasn't that my wife and I were eavesdropping. Honest. It's just that the four well-dressed, older ladies at the restaurant table next to ours were so close we couldn't help but hear part of their conversation. One lady was recounting the beginning of her day. She said she was following her usual routine of getting up, taking care of some personal maintenance, and then turning on the TV for her morning Oprah fix - watching Oprah Winfrey's Show, that is. No Oprah. She began pushing buttons on her remote, increasingly more frustrated by her inability to find her morning TV companion. At that point, her daughter happened to call on the telephone. Mom began venting her frustration over how technology was failing her and soliciting her daughter's help. Finally she just sputtered, "Where's Oprah?" When her daughter could finally get a word in, she said, "Mom, it's Sunday! Oprah's not on, but church is!" Mom suddenly went into fast-forward mode - not with her TV, but with her getting ready for church; which she came very close to missing entirely.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Miss What You Were Made For."
Poor lady! She didn't know what day it was. So she didn't know what she was supposed to be doing. It's possible for many of us to make that same mistake - not about church, but about God Himself. It's possible for God to come your way and for you to totally miss what day it is - the day that God comes to touch your life and become more personal and more powerful to you than you ever dreamed.
It's been happening for 2,000 years, and it's happening today. There's an incident in the life of Jesus that reveals the awesome possibility of an unforgettable God-day in your life, and the awful danger of missing it with consequences that will last for all eternity. The account is in Luke 19, beginning with verse 41, our word for today from the Word of God. It says: "As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it and said, 'If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace.'" He had just entered Jerusalem on what we know today as Palm Sunday, with multitudes welcoming Him with a royal celebration. Many of whom were, only five days later, perhaps in the same crowd that was screaming, "Crucify Him!" Now Jesus predicts disaster for them because, in His words, "...you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you."
That's a mistake God really doesn't want you to make because He really, really loves you. There comes this day in your life when Jesus goes by, offering Himself to you to be your personal Savior from your personal sin. There comes this day when He moves your heart to care about the sin in your life, to see that it will cost you heaven, and to understand that His dying on that cross was to pay the awful price for your sin.
He gives you a chance to put your trust in Him to have every sin forgiven; to trade the hell you deserve for the heaven you could never deserve. But you need to grab Him while He's close. The Bible says, "Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near" (Isaiah 55:7). You may think you'll come to Jesus when you're ready. That's wrong. Jesus said, "No one can come to Me unless the Father draws Him" (John 6:44).
You come to Jesus when He's ready - when He gets your heart ready for Him. And if you feel a tug in His direction today, He's ready now. This is your opportunity to belong to Jesus. Today is your chance. If you have never given yourself to this Man who died for you, you need to grab Him while He's close. You can do that right where you are - just by telling Him from your heart something like this: "Jesus, my only hope with God is what You did for me on that cross when You died to pay for my junk. I'm dropping the junk to grab You with both hands. I'm Yours."
If that's what you want, I want to invite you to check out our website today, because there's some great information there to make sure you have begun your relationship with Jesus. The website is YoursForLife.net. I hope you'll go there as soon as you can today.
As your life closes and your eternity begins, I pray Jesus will not have to say to you, "You did not recognize the time of God's coming to you." If that time is now, don't miss Him.