Believers today are in the midst of an identity crisis; infiltration,
persecution, and gang stalking have left many fractured, and
frantically searching for answers.......and they have found
many.......yet, they are searching in all the wrong times. There are
those who enshrine the early church, searching for some early historical
message; trying to set up some personal carbon copy of first century
purity.......others go further, trying to add Torah and Jewish culture
to their spiritual to-do list.......and for others, this still isn't
backward looking enough; they want to crawl back to the womb of
humanity; they want to go back to Eden.......yet when they get there
they find only the same blank stare looking back at them; that they saw
in the beginning of their search.
The problem that they run into
is that God's redemptive plan was never centered on Adam, the Jew, or
the early church.......it is centered on the person of Jesus Christ, and
Him alive in us; right now.......and because of this, His plan is
centered now, squarely on you and me.......His lambs, in all
times.......and in each of us; in all our time, He is always on the
move.......new within us, in every moment. Regardless of our times; in
His moment, we are always standing in the great now of God's good will
for us.
Beyond dredging up the past for a sense of direction;
there is also a form of Christian fortune telling that has become
commonplace among believers and groups.......trend watching has become a
rising tide, and ministries everywhere are changing formats,
redisigning their identities, and pandering to the surrounding
culture.......not based upon the movement of the Spirit, or a prophetic
word.......but rather, just trying to guess at, and grab ahold of future
trends, to keep their heads above water.......once again, giving up
God's investment in the here and now; to seek their direction in
faddism, mental gymnastics, and the thoughts of men.......and if you are
not obsessing over the current fad of the week; you are stubbornly
living in, and yearning for that someday of the Lord.......when He will
return to rescue you, and set all things right.......thus saving your
ass in your own time, rather than building you up, in His moments of
now.......you wait for the day, and sing songs about the clouds being
rolled away; while watching and praying for the antichrist on the
nightly news to give meaning to your lives.......as you shout, 'He is
coming here, He is coming there.......He is coming soon.......when all
the while, our Lord's words were that no man would know the day or the
hour.......understand, my friends, these were words of freedom from the
times of men; and from men trying do design their own times.......He was
telling us to put away the crystal ball, and come to Him.......now.
Our Lord understood that worrying about tomorrow doesn't do much good
for anyone.......because, for us, the data is never all in.......there
are endless variables, and limitless possibilities beyond us, that we
cannot imagine.......in fact; if we are walking, now, with the God of
all things are possible, we can always expect, only the unexpected. In
other words, we have, for the most part, no idea of what God has in
store for the next moment.......thus, worrying about the future is, at
best, an exercise in futility. Our hope, and our life, comes in laying
aside our fear of what may be, and living in the what is, thus releasing
ourselves into the always present hands of our Lord.......who summed
all of this up in those words, 'Let tomorrow worry about itself;' for we
are called to live in the eternal now of God.
Tomorrow is too
late for anything, and he who sees his help and salvation in tomorrow
shall continually fail and fall today.......only that which is done now
remains; that which is to be done tomorrow never appears. It is wisdom
to leave that which has not arrived, and to live in that which is.
My friends, all of our Lord's efforts, the entirety of His work in the
world.......and in us.......is enacted, for us, in the present
moment.......in fact, this now, is the instrument of God's design to cut
through the bonds of time that so easily ensnare us.......it is also
His purpose as well; that He might open our eyes to the joy set before
us.......now.......and to the Kingdom that is within
us.......now.......He is always drawing and calling us to live in His
right-nowness. We, as believers, cannot afford to dismiss this truth
that there is an eternal present in which we live.......this same
eternal present, within His eternal now, is the only space in which your
life can unfold.......as a matter of fact, it is the only real place of
life itself.......and, for all of us, it is the only real moment of
presence that we have in this life.......so stop dreaming, and start
living, in the only place of life given to us here.......begin to live
with God; in His Eternal Now.
Of course, I can tell you to live
in the now.......I can tell you of its importance in your walk with
God.......but until you understand the why of it for yourself; within
your own heart; you will not go far.
