READ: Acts 24
THINK: There is something deep down inside every one of us that has a sense that God exists, and his creation points us towards him. But so many people get caught up by the blinders of sin and the world around us, and so they suppress that sense, deny it, and do their very best to convince themselves that he isn’t real…until they face a crisis.
The British novelist Eric Ambler was an avowed atheist who was making a World War II documentary, The Battle of San Pietro, when some exploding shells nearby knocked him to the ground. Ambler was terrified and he believed that he might die and in his moment of fear and deep crisis, he wrote “My unconscious mind chose to play a nasty trick on me. I heard myself saying, ‘Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.’” Abler ended up unharmed. And he chose not to think more about what made him pray in that moment but instead to commit himself more heartily to his unbelief while telling no one that it had faltered.
Abler had a moment where God drew him to himself. But he refused that moment and squelched the redemptive spark that it provided. Felix, the governor of Judea, squelched many such sparks. For years he watched Paul live and heard him preach the gospel message. He had all the head knowledge necessary for faith in Jesus. He knew all about who Jesus was and what he did. But he wasn’t sure that he wanted to accept it as true and allow Jesus to be his Savior and Lord.
So, instead of acting on what he knew, Felix decided that it really wasn’t very urgent and he put off making a decision for Christ until “a convenient time.” But that convenient time never came. The time that Felix was waiting for, that perfect moment, never showed up. And Felix missed out.
In our lives it is all too easy to treat God and faith as something that can be put off, as something that is not urgent. Instead of committing our lives to him and leveraging ourselves fully for the cause of the gospel, we chase after the things of this world and put off living for God until it is convenient. But the truth is that a convenient time never comes. The perfect moment to start serving God with our entire selves is now. It’s not something that can wait.
If you have put off placing your trust in Jesus, don’t be like Felix. Do it today. You can’t repent too soon because you don’t know how soon it will be too late. If you have accepted Christ as Lord but haven’t lived like he is – feeling like his call on your life can wait until you have more time, money, motivation, etc. – stop wasting your life away! The time to live out God’s call and the vision he’s given you is right now. Why dream it for later if you’re not willing to live it now?
PRAY: Listen/Sing/Pray this famous hymn. The original version was written by in 1896 by Judson Van DeVenter. He was torn about what career path to pursue though he felt that God might be calling him to be an evangelist. One night, at a gathering with fellow believers, he realized that the world’s call and God’s call didn’t match up. And he decided to surrender all to Jesus. Surrendering all to Jesus doesn’t mean we all have to be evangelists – that was Van DeVenter’s call not everyone’s – but it means we have to stop putting off God’s plans for us in order to chase the things of the world. Surrender all today!
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