Monday, September 21, 2015
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It pays to book your airline reservations in advance. You probably know that if you didn't do it at some point and you lost the two week in advance or three week in advance fare like I have.
I missed booking one of those fares 14 days in advance by one day! I booked 13 days in advance. That should do it! Well, that extra day? One day was worth an extra $100 on the airfare. I put off booking my flight. I'd been waiting for all my plans to come together, and it cost me. The longer you wait, the more it costs.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Act Before the Price Goes Up."
Which leads us to our word for today from the Word of God from Psalm 32. I'll begin reading at verse 1. It comes out of the experience of King David. "Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit."
Now David goes on to tell us that he knows what he's talking about. "When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand (He's talking about God) was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer." Then there's this great turning point. "Then I acknowledged my sin to You and I did not cover up my iniquity. I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.'"
You can almost hear the sigh of relief when he says, "...and you forgave all the guilt of my sin." The biggest thing here is that he had business to do with God, and it was business that was fairly unpleasant; acknowledging his sin, uncovering what he had covered, confessing it. He said, "I was wasted...I was groaning. Things were heavy on me. My strength was sapped." He wasn't feeling good. There's a lot of unnecessary frustration and pain when you put God off.
That might be what's happening to you right now. Because maybe like those airline reservations, the longer you wait the more it costs. It will never be easier to deal with what the Holy Spirit is convicting you of than it is right now. It's only going to get tougher from here, because your heart is getting harder as you quench the Spirit.
God's warning and God's consequences are going to get harder and tougher as you ignore what He's trying to move you to do and to face. As you escalate your resistance, God will have to escalate His working in your life. And God loves you too much to let you go on in your sin. Because sin will ultimately destroy everything you care about. He's not going to let you go further on this detour, because peace and happiness and fulfillment and the meaning of your life depends on you being in the center of His will, not pursuing your own. He makes it expensive to run from Him. The cost is going up every minute.
Doesn't it make sense to get out of the fire and say, "That's it, God, I'm done with this thing. I confess. I acknowledge my sin. Let's deal with this garbage." Maybe God in His love for you has had you running into one wall after another so you would finally stop and turn to Him and go to the cross where His Son paid for every sin, every wrong and dirty and proud and hurtful thing you've ever done. And He wants you to experience that forgiveness where as David said, "You forgave the guilt of my sin."
This could be the day you're forgiven. This could be the day you're clean. This could be the day that the war turns to peace and you say, "Jesus, I'm finally stopping. I'm finally coming to Your cross to deal with my sin and find my Savior." You ready for that? Our website's all about it. Go there. ANewStory.com. Or text us at 442-244-WORD.
It's not going to get any easier. So if the Holy Spirit is talking to your heart even right now about making this decision, then why don't you act before the price goes up?