To Encourage You

2 Corinthians 6:1-2 “Working together with Him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says, ‘In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

Have you ever borne the consequences of a missed deadline?  One time I was filing my income taxes using TurboTax.  I was in good shape, for it was well before April 15 when I filed (or at least thought that I had).  One of the nice features of TurboTax is that it fills in information for you from the previous year and thus saves you lots of time in the process.  Well, when it was time to file the next year, I found that my information from the previous year didn’t pop up on my computer screen. What in the world was going on?! It was then that I found out that I hadn’t gone far enough in the program the previous year. You see, I forgot to push the last button, and I had never filed. Yikes!! As a result, I paid a penalty, for the government doesn’t like it when you don’t give them their money on time!  It was a mistake I never made again, believe me. 

But there are some deadlines that we can miss that have much greater consequences. In fact, they can be eternal in nature. That’s what the passage above is talking about. You see, God has given us a deadline to receive His awesome gift of salvation – and that deadline is the date of our death.  The problem is that we don’t know when that date is. It could be today, or it could be far in the future.  Whatever the case, God is telling us that it’s not wise to wait.

I’ve had people tell me that they were thinking about giving their life to Christ, but they just weren’t ready yet. I know of one case where a friend who had told me this died at a young age.  Unfortunately, I don’t know if he ever got ready.  If he did, he never told me about it.  And if he wasn’t ready, what a tragedy.  Well, if you’re reading this and you aren’t saved, if you’ve never repented and turned to Jesus for the gift of eternal life, God’s Word would have you to know that there’s good news for you.  You have time, and that time is right now.  God’s grace has been offered to you, but if you reject it there will come a time when that offer will all be in vain.  But now it’s a favorable time.  Right here and now God wants to help you.  Now is the day of salvation if you will receive it.  It’s such wonderful news, but there’s a deadline, and neither you nor I know when that deadline will come.  It is my prayer, indeed it’s the desire of the God Who created you, that you not receive His grace in vain.

We are told that the last days will be just like it was at the time of Noah. While Noah built the ark over a time period of about 100 years, we are told that he was a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5).  Noah preached that the time of judgment was coming, but before the rains fell there was still time for salvation.  But when the door of the ark was shut and the rains began to fall, the deadline had passed. As a result, only Noah and his family were saved.  The ark is an Old Testament shadow of Christ.  He is the door of the sheep.  He is the Way, the Gate, through which all who enter will be saved.   But there is coming a time when the gate will be shut and no one else will be able to enter. It will be the greatest tragedy that ever befell man.  But now there is time. Now is the day of salvation. Now is the time of the Lord’s favor as He patiently waits for us to not receive His grace in vain.

Will you receive it? Will you enter in?  Now is the time to do it, for no one knows when that opportunity will end.