MY FRIENDS, DO YOU WANT TO BE MADE WHOLE?

Nov. 7, 2016

MY FRIENDS, DO YOU WANT TO BE MADE WHOLE?

“Our time belongs to God. Every moment is His, and we are under the most solemn obligation to improve it to His glory. Of no talent He has given will He require a more strict account than of our time. The value of time is beyond computation. Christ regarded every moment as precious, and it is thus that we should regard it. Life is too short to be trifled away. We have but a few days of probation in which to prepare for eternity. We have no time to waste, no time to devote to selfish pleasure, no time for the indulgence of sin.

It is now that we are to form characters for the future, immortal life. It is now that we are to prepare for the searching judgment. The human family has scarcely begun to live when they begin to die, and the world’s incessant labor ends in nothingness unless a true knowledge in regard to eternal life is gained.” (E.G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons p) My friends let’s look back over this journey Christ has placed us on.

Not far, just the last seven days. Is there anything we did during that time frame, that prepared our character for the “future, immortal life,” that God has prepared for the redeemed? And did we do anything to prepare ourselves or prepare others for “the searching judgment” of God? And did we “gain any knowledge in regard to eternal life” through a daily study of God’s word while allowing His Spirit to “guide us into all truth and understanding?”

Or did we “trifle our time away” while devoting the majority of it on “selfish pleasures?” John 5 gives a narrative of “a certain man who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, He knew that he had already been in that condition for a long time, but He asked him anyway, wilt thou be made whole? “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred.

While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”  The man at the pool of Bethesda had wasted thirty-eight years of his life with only a few excuses as to why he had allowed years of his life to slip away in front of a pool. My friends we “can’t change the direction of the wind, but we can adjust our sails [through Christ]to always reach our destination. [which is Gods kingdom] (Jimmy dean)

“Do you want to be made whole.” Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.”Eph 5:14-17 (KJV)

My friends, do we seek an “understanding of God’s will for our life?” Remember, “every idle word [and time], we must give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by our words [and time] we shalt be justified, and by [our] words [and time we] shall be condemned. Matt 12:36-37 (KJV) Christ is knocking daily, soon He will say it is finished, so “do we really want to be made whole” or “have we set our affection on the things of this earth that will soon pass away, and not on the things above that are life eternal.