Praise the Lord for this last day of 2012. Praise the Lord for His faithfulness and for His tender mercies. It is a wonderful blessing to enter the New Year through Christmas, through much celebration and through much rejoicing. Praise the Lord that He has come down to be with us. He is Emmanuel, God with us. The Word became flesh and dwells with us even now and through Eternity.
“Be very careful, then, how you live-not as unwise but as wise” (Ephesians 5:15). To “be careful” means literally to walk accurately or precisely. The King James uses the old word “circumspectly.” It has the idea of walking on a narrow path along the side of a steep mountain. Keep your eyes open lest you take a wrong step and plunge to your death.
Sometimes we are guilty of living too fast. We make too many snap
judgments, we come to too many hasty decisions, we speak too fast, we move too
fast, we react too fast, and we answer before we hear the question. The divine
prescription for our hurried lives is still: “Be still and know that I am God”
(Psalm
46:10). When we slow down enough to get God involved, we
discover that he can do more through us than we can ever accomplish on our own.
We are invited to redeem time. “Making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil”
(Ephesians
5:16).
The King James Version uses the word “redeem,” as in “redeeming the time.” To us redeem is a salvation word, but originally it comes from the marketplace and means to “buy back” or to “purchase” something. You “redeem” something when you buy it for your own use.
“These are desperate times!” (The Message - Ephesians 5:16) The NIV uses the word “opportunity” instead of
time. Paul indicated
that there is a particular reason we must “redeem the time” and grasp the
urgency of the moment “Because the days are evil.” Paul wrote these words while chained to the guards
in a Roman jail. The emperor was Nero, a perverted excuse for a king . Before
too long he would set fire to Rome and blame the Christians. Later he would
order Paul beheaded. Ephesus, a city wholly given over to heathenism, was in
Paul's day the most important city in the Roman province of Asia.
Meanwhile clouds of
persecution were rolling in. As the gospel spread, it encountered opposition in
the form of entrenched interests that saw Jesus and his followers as a threat.
That’s what Paul meant
when he said, “These are desperate times!”
Evil days
tempt us to despair, encourage us to give up. When the day is dark and the
hearts of men have grown cold, we feel that there is nothing to be done, and
sometimes we give up too soon. “Day of moral corruption offer special
opportunities for the prosecution of great enterprises for the kingdom of God”
(G. Campbell Morgan). That’s good news. In fact, the things that make it
difficult for us for live as Christians are the things that make us shine.
Hard times are
blessings in disguise. Days of moral compromise offer incredible opportunities
for the gospel.
When the world around us seems to be going haywire, we have an incredible opportunity to display the life-changing power of Jesus Christ. The darker the night, the brighter the light shines. “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is” (Ephesians 5:17). These are great days to be alive. They are exciting, amazing, uncertain, and sometimes frightening days (or all at the same time).
Whatever our days be like, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6). “There is no rock like our God” (1 Samuel 2:2). “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (2 Kings 6:16).
“He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20). In Christ,
Brown
http://youtu.be/3x2fSxOeij4
The King James Version uses the word “redeem,” as in “redeeming the time.” To us redeem is a salvation word, but originally it comes from the marketplace and means to “buy back” or to “purchase” something. You “redeem” something when you buy it for your own use.
“These are desperate times!” (The Message - Ephesians 5:16) The NIV uses the word “opportunity” instead of
time. Paul indicated
that there is a particular reason we must “redeem the time” and grasp the
urgency of the moment “Because the days are evil.” Paul wrote these words while chained to the guards
in a Roman jail. The emperor was Nero, a perverted excuse for a king . Before
too long he would set fire to Rome and blame the Christians. Later he would
order Paul beheaded. Ephesus, a city wholly given over to heathenism, was in
Paul's day the most important city in the Roman province of Asia.
Meanwhile clouds of
persecution were rolling in. As the gospel spread, it encountered opposition in
the form of entrenched interests that saw Jesus and his followers as a threat.
That’s what Paul meant
when he said, “These are desperate times!”
Evil days
tempt us to despair, encourage us to give up. When the day is dark and the
hearts of men have grown cold, we feel that there is nothing to be done, and
sometimes we give up too soon. “Day of moral corruption offer special
opportunities for the prosecution of great enterprises for the kingdom of God”
(G. Campbell Morgan). That’s good news. In fact, the things that make it
difficult for us for live as Christians are the things that make us shine.
Hard times are
blessings in disguise. Days of moral compromise offer incredible opportunities
for the gospel.When the world around us seems to be going haywire, we have an incredible opportunity to display the life-changing power of Jesus Christ. The darker the night, the brighter the light shines. “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is” (Ephesians 5:17). These are great days to be alive. They are exciting, amazing, uncertain, and sometimes frightening days (or all at the same time).
Whatever our days be like, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6). “There is no rock like our God” (1 Samuel 2:2). “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (2 Kings 6:16).
“He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20). In Christ,
Brown
http://youtu.be/3x2fSxOeij4
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