Isaiah 40:5-8 And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has
spoken." (6) A voice says, "Cry!" And I said,
"What shall I cry?" All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like
the flower of the field. (7) The grass withers, the flower fades when the
breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. (8)
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand
forever.
(A recent event has prompted me to
break from our study through Genesis and my mind has been directed to these particular
verses. We will resume Genesis tomorrow.)
A good friend of mine passed away
just a few days ago, his death was sudden, unexpected and at the tender age of
33. Several hard truths struck me when I heard of his death. The first being,
don’t take your youth for granted. The majority of us think that it is only
when we get older, much older that we will have to worry about our death and
the death of our life-long friends. Yet death never abides by our timeline, nor
can we dictate to it, it will come and there will be no stopping it, for it
comes at the God-appointed time. The second truth that struck me left me with a
great sense of shame and regret. Although we had been in school together for
some 9 years, I cannot recall a single occasion whereby I sought to make the
Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ known to him. To my further shame I have
to confess that often times my behaviour was not reflective of one who claims
to be a follower of Christ.
Of course we can excuse all our
short-comings away, we can call it immaturity, or busyness, or not wanting to
anti-social, or not wanting to Bible-bash etc… but the reality is that they are
all excuses that are not justifiable. We take too much security in thinking
that we will see those whom we love and care for again. We hide behind the
excuse of waiting for an opportunity to arise that will allow us to share the Gospel
with them, instead of pro-actively creating an opportunity. We fail to
appreciate the truth of that which God says through Isaiah, life is brief and
it can be snatched away in the blink of eye. Think upon that reality.
We have the God-given responsibility,
call and privilege to both declare the Gospel to all and live out the Gospel in
the presence of all. We are to never presume that we will see them again, nor
presume that there will be another opportunity to tell them of Christ, or
demonstrate the love of Christ to them. We have today, that is the only guarantee
we have, the question is what will we do with today?
Father of mercy, we ask for Your mercy today as we seek Your forgiveness
from the many times we have failed to declare the Gospel, or to live as we
should. We pray that You might help us to grasp the brevity of life, the length
of eternity and the urgent need to make Christ known. We ask for the further
aid of Your Spirit to prompt us to share the Gospel, to show us how to create
opportunities to share the Gospel and to help us live in a manner that reflects
the Gospel. Amen.
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