How do we live and use our time? That’s the question that many people ask themselves at the end of the year. Here we stand December 31, 2021 after nearly two long years of chaos and fear and confusion – all named Covid! There is, however, a bigger question we need to ask ourselves in the light of the coming of Jesus Christ into the world to bring God’s Kingdom and redeem our lives from Sin and Death. It is not the question of how I could improve my life in 2022. Nor is it a question of what I have learned in 2021. Nor is it a matter of getting my priorities in line for the coming 12 months.
The real question is this: where do I think I am living right now? That does not mean where are you located physically or what state of mind do I have – positive and optimistic or negative and pessimistic, etc. Rather, where do you really believe your life is located. It is just located in the flow of human history with one day following another and you attempting to be the best you can be? Do you think your life belongs to you? Or do you believe in the depths of your heart and the deepest recesses of your mind that you are living RIGHT NOW in the Kingdom of God…that RIGHT NOW you are a child of the Savior and Lord…that RIGHT NOW is the only time you have to be about “your Father’s business…that RIGHT NOW you need to serve Jesus no matter where you are.
There is an amazing thing that happens when we realize that the Kingdom of God is already present. We know there are no excuses for our failing to live above our temptations or failing to love others with all our hearts or succumbing to the powers of the Evil One to defeat and discourage us or to waste anymore time thinking sooner or later I’ll get closer to the Lord. No! When we realize the presence of the Kingdom, we know that God is as close to us because of Jesus as he is ever going to get – except for when Jesus comes again to bring the fullness of salvation to realization. We don’t need any more spiritual help…in God’s Kingdom it is already present. We don’t need any more time in order to really be able to serve the Lord…God’s Kingdom is here, and our time is being lived (wasted or invested) in the presence of the Kingdom. We don’t need any more motivation to be given us to get closer to the Lord…God’s Kingdom is here and he’s giving us every day all that we need.
No, the only thing we need to do is to reorient the way we see our lives and our time. If we have received Jesus into our lives, we are RIGHT NOW God’s children and citizens of His Kingdom. We just need to stop thinking that our busyness or life’s demands or our struggles are impediments to a closer walk with God and a more meaningful life of discipleship. God’s Kingdom is here…in the midst of our busyness. Let’s re-evaluate how we deal with all of the things that keep us busy and see how we can use them to serve Jesus. God’s Kingdom is here…in the midst of life’s demands. Let’s discover how each of those demands can be filled with God’s presence, peace, and purpose. God’s Kingdom is here…in the midst of all our struggles. Let’s ask Jesus how to enable us to see every struggle as a way to grow closer to Him and not farther away.
God’s Kingdom is here…but God’s Kingdom will some day be fully revealed when Jesus comes again. Everything that is not of eternal value will be see for the waste of time it was. All the demands that were not of real value for our love for Jesus and others will be shown to have been distractions. Each struggle will be identified as a moment he wanted to use to draw us closer to him in God’s Kingdom; and we’ll recognize when we failed to let him. Jesus is going to come again…to bring an end to all evil, suffering, and distraction. Let’s live right now for the things that he knows are of eternal worth…and not waste our days thinking that our lives belong to us. Let the real revolution begin in our hearts!!
