Now is the time

This weekend marks the four year anniversary of me starting to write devotionals. And to celebrate, I’m going to share the first one I ever wrote with you. Enjoy the nostalgia of it.
You can’t come close to God and not be changed. The way I would look at it is like radiation heat transfer in Physics. As an object gets closer to a heat source it’ll absorb more heat. As we try to climb the mountain of the Lord we will get closer to His glory, and we’ll absorb more of it.  In radiation, good absorbers also make good emitters. So as we climb the mountain of the Lord and seek God’s face we will emit more of His glory into this dark world we live in.
Delirious have a song that goes “Now is the time for us to shine, shine with the face of Christ divine’. We only get one shot at life – we can’t afford to waste it. We know theawesome truth that is the Gospel, but hundreds of others in Wallace, millions in the UK, billions in the world don’t. It is up to us to change that. James 5v20 says ‘Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his ways will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins’ (NIV). We have a huge responsibility to spread the Good News to save others from the pits of Hell. How terrible would it be to get to the throne of God and have nothing to say when asked “What did you do with my Word? What did you do to reach out to the lost?” We must ensure we don’t waste our lives.
I believe the best way for us to reach out to the lost in our school/uni/work is through our actions, by being walking adverts for God. I say this because most people already know the basic message of the Gospel, but not how much they need Jesus. We need to show them that for us ‘To live is Christ and to die is gain’ (Philippians 1v21).
This means not caring what others think of us, as only what Jesus thinks is important at the end of the day. It means dying to self, to materialistic desires, and letting Jesus live through us.
To let Jesus live through us we have to offer up our whole lives to Him – not just when it’s easy at Scripture Union or Church or when it suits us, but 24/7 365. This means when we know people will persecute us. When we know it involves sacrifice. When the going’s tough. But it means that people will see just how much Christ means to us that we don’t care what they think of us, we only care about pleasing Him.
So what can we do to please Him? In Matthew 25 Jesus says “Whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me’ (v40). In Isaiah 58 God tells us ‘to loose the chains of injustice’, ‘to share your food with the hungry’, ‘to provide the poor wander with shelter’ and ‘to clothe [the naked]’. He says that when we do that ‘Then your light will break forth like the dawn.’
The implication of these verses is that when we carry out good deeds to those in need the glory of God will be emitted into the world though us, and we will be doing them for Christ himself. As good emitters make good absorbers by emitting God’s glory into the world will also absorb more of it as we become more Christ-like in our actions, and we will be able to ascend the hill of the Lord.
This can be the generation that seeks God’s face. But it’ll only happen if we are willing to shine with His glory, and to make NOW the time. We don’t know how long we have left to live. We have to reach out now; we can’t afford to put it off, otherwise we run the risk of wasting the potential He has given us. Don’t risk wasting your life.