07/29/2021
Do we feel like men and women born in the wrong spiritual time? Do we feel more akin to the first Christians who followed behind Jesus than with modern man? Sometimes we look around ourselves and see what is happening in the world, and Church, and our hearts ache exceedingly for His return; we long for His coming, and a renewal of faith around the world. Well we are not alone in feeling this way because Paul felt just as many of us do… born out of due time!
“And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.”
1 Corinthians 15:8 KJV
Paul felt as though he was the last person to actually see Jesus. He thought that he was unworthy of the title of apostle because he persecuted the Church before his conversion, and yet we know that his faith became unwavering. Was this feeling that he was not worthy to be called an apostle the thorn in his flesh that he couldn’t shake free of? There are those among us today who are believers but began their walk of faith much like Paul did; some ridiculed the church, taunted Christians, and others, who truly believe today, were raised in Christian households yet were doubters, and even worked from within the Church itself in an attempt to undermine the faith itself.
“For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”
1 Corinthians 15:9 KJV
Even though Paul felt unworthy, he also felt the grace of God strengthening him, and felt that it made him the Christian he was. Do we feel that same grace today? Are those among us who doubt able to touch the wounds of Christ with fingers guided by merciful grace? Are we constantly bothered by our own personal thorns, our feelings of being born in the wrong place and time, our inability to place our hand into the side of Jesus and thus believe, or are we made to feel unworthy by remembering who we once were? Perhaps we need to labor, strengthened by the grace which flows to us through Christ, to advance the kingdom of God, and to bring Him glory? In this way we will grow strong in our faith, assured by God’s Will, and our obedience.
“But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”
1 Corinthians 15:10 KJV
So it is that today, many of us say that we long to have lived in the time of Jesus, but we are not meant to live in the past. We are living today in the continuing age of Christ, and await patiently for his return, strengthened by more than mere hope… we wait with certain knowledge that the very next knock on our door will be Him. While waiting, God’s Grace gives our fingers access to His Son’s wounds, and the Holy Spirit assures us that He abides in us. Today we preach as if it were long ago, we deliver the same message, and are consumed by the same amazing faith as the earliest of Christians. Listen once more to Paul…
“Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.”
1 Corinthians 15:11 KJV
Are we worshipping a God of the past, a Savior that has gone away, or the one true God, and living savior, who lives… seated at the right hand of God; our God who was, and is, and is to come…
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”
Revelation 1:8 KJV
Prayer:
Father, thank you for our birth in this the season and age of Jesus Christ. Thank you Father for sending your Son to redeem us, and to pour out your grace upon us. Thank you Holy Father for allowing us to live in this eternal age of the risen Christ who ushers us by grace into your presence forever and ever more. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God whose age knows no beginning and no end. Great are you who has delivered us from our sin through the blood of Christ, and makes us worthy, day by day, and instant by instant, to live in your eternal presence. Praised be your name for every step we take with you in this perfect age of both the Father, and the Son. Glorious are you Lord, and righteous your Son Jesus… now, and forevermore. In you we find certainty, and the eminent return of Jesus. In you we are made eternal by our belief, and your amazing grace.
“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.”
1 Corinthians 15:19-23 KJV
Rich Forbes