Do You Need A Revision?

A friend and fellow blogger wrote a post about writing yesterday, and titled it "The End or The Finish." In her post, Glenda Mathes said, in essence, that when a writer has finished writing a story, novel or whatever, she still has to go back and revise it to make it the best it can be. I couldn't agree with her more, but as I reflected on the post, it occurred to me that her concept could very well apply to the Christian walk as well.

How many of us have found ourselves at the end of  the rope, so to speak, before we decided that something must be done. How many of us have ignored the signals sent to us by the Holy Spirit to turn around and revise our ways and now we are hanging by a thread, wondering when would it end? In the Old Testament God sent prophets to the people to tell them when they were doing wrong. But in most cases, they ignored the prophets and suffered greatly for it. Read about Eli the priest and his sons (1 Samuel 2 : 33 - 35); Nathan and David (2 Samuel 12 : 1 - 19); the prophets and King Jehoiakim (2 Kings 24 : 1 - 2) ; the prophet Daniel and King Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 4 : 25; 28 - 33) and many others.

After Daniel had interpreted King Nebuchadnezzar's dream to him, he ended with these words:  "Therefore, O king, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue" (v 27). This story has a happy ending. After the prophecy was fulfilled, and the king lost all he had, including his sanity, he looked up to heaven and acknowledged God (v 34 - 37). 

Maybe you are in need of some revision before you reach your end. Maybe you feel the nudging of the Holy Spirit, but don't know where or how to begin. You cannot do it on your own. Ask Jesus Christ to come into your life and make you a new creature. The minute you do that, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of you and begins the revision process. He'll remove everything that is keeping you from being a worthwhile servant of God. Don't put it off. The end may be near. Are you ready?

Are The Days Being Shortened?

It might be safe to say that most people are aware of the earthquakes and temperature changes that have been taking place since the year began. Places that normally get a lot of snow are getting more than their fair share, while areas that may never see the white stuff are feeling the cold, nevertheless. The media even had fun tallying the number of states that experienced snowfall this year. They came up with forty-nine states. I'll let you figure out which one lucked out.

On a more serious note, I saw something in the news this week that made my pulses race. The report stated that "NASA scientists believe Chile's devastating earthquake may have speeded up the Earth's rotation and shortened the length of a day." However, the report was quick to add that no one would notice since the reduction was only by 1.26 microseconds of a day or one millionth of a second.

Okay. So we can stop truing to beat the clock. But wait! The report went on to say that the earth is not rigid, and any movements can cause it to wobble, as happened in Chile a few days ago and in Indonesia in 2004. The report again reassured us that there was no cause for concern, but said that "Using the same mathematical model as it used for Chile, the Nasa team had estimated the 9.1 Sumatran earthquake in 2004 would have shortened a day by 6.8 microseconds."

So there you have it. 1.26 microseconds here, 6.8 microseconds there, how much does that add up to? How many times have NASA scientists detected a slight reduction in our time and did not mention it? Not that it matters really. Because those of us who are Christians know what the Bible warns us about in the book of Matthew: "And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved : but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened" (24:22).

I believe the Bible. I believe it is the infallible word of God. I believe that many of the prophecies proclaimed in the Bible have been and are being fulfilled right before our very eyes. So we do not have to be afraid. God loves us so much, He's shortening our days in order for us to be saved from the wrath to come. So it doesn't matter what the scientists say, although we respect them highly. All we have to do is what Jesus says: "look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh" (Luke 21: 28).