To Know Him in the Now

Now is the time.

All your sins, past and future, are forgiven through the cross of Christ. You are free. You are free from guilt over your yesterdays, and free from anxiety over your tomorrows. This is only possible because God always inhabits the Eternal Now. It is well said that He is the great I Am, not the great I Was, nor the great I Will Be.

"Now" is always the acceptable, and in fact the only available time to receive the grace of God. (The Bible says, "Behold now is the day of salvation", which means the very same thing...)

This applies to me, though I first came to know His salvation 38 years ago. "NOW" is still the only possible opportunity I have to work out my salvation - now is the time to fear and tremble, lest I be found trying to add to His gift of righteousness. Now is the only possible opportunity I have to labor to enter His rest. Now is the only possible opportunity I have to practice His presence, to savor His sweetness, to taste of His goodness, and boast in His ability.

The only real obedience is now obedience. Planned obedience doesn't count, and past obedience counts even less. Past obedience doesn't accrue in some imaginary balance scale, the weight of which absolves me from present devotion.

I either love my brother now, or it is as though I never have and never will. (You know...your brother...your sister...the ones with names and phone numbers and addresses and children and burdens and joys and hurts and fears and they offended you and you can't quite get over it and now is your only acceptable time to make it right, to live in love again.)

I either practice His presence now, or He is only real to me in my memory, not in this moment.

Grace is not reserved for those weeks and months after I first believed. Grace is more for the present moment, a throne to which I now run with my actual life, not with my version of the story. God only deals in reality, He doesn't deal with my spin on reality.

I either hunger for Him now, or I am not hungry at all, with no guarantee of an appetite tomorrow. My heart is either tender now, or it is hard. Past tenderheartedness is not insurance in the event of future callouses. Past fire doesn't make up for present lukewarmness.

Who you are now....is who you are. You are not who you used to be, and you are not who you intend to be.

Does your "now" find you falling short? If so, you have just become human, because it is our "now" that forever finds us out. When we stop living in the land of memory and good intention, we always find ourselves in a time of need. Oh, how we need the grace of God.

"I need Thee, Oh I need Thee! Every hour I need Thee!"

Whatever you need to do to change your mind, to make things right, to take joy, to be unjaded and uncritical, to fully obey, to fully love, to fully forgive, to draw those you love straight to your heart....do it.

Now.

Now is all there is.