Today is going to be another one of those crazy days; I woke up and said, "I really don't have time for morning devotions." But, I looked at the next set of verses as we continue through 2 Corinthians together; and, when I read the first two knew I had to blog today, no matter what. Here is our focus verse for this morning, 2 Corinthians 6:2 - -
2 For he says, “I heard you at the acceptable time, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” Look, now is the acceptable time; look, now is the day of salvation!
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I don't know why Paul shoved this verse, almost parenthetically, into this passage. It does not seem to fit, at first glance. Paul is quoting the first part of a verse from Isaiah (49:8) - -
This is what the LORD says: "At the time I decide to show my favor, I will respond to you; in the day of deliverance I will help you;
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I don't believe there is a human being who has ever lived who has not cried out to God for help, at some point in his or her life. It is the prayer most often prayed. It is prayed by saints; it is prayed by sinners, by devout believers and by infidels who claim there is no God. Sometimes it comes wrenching out of us in the midst of the direst circumstances, when faced with the imminence of our deaths, for example.
We were talking about this with some friends the other day, how God answers prayers. He always answers, but sometimes the answer He gives is not the answer we wanted. God answers our prayers for His own glory and to further His plans on the earth. This is why He sometimes seems indiscriminate. There are times He grants the requests of unbelievers, as much as He does believers. After all, if He did not hear and answer prayers of unbelievers, how would any of us have become believers? :)
When we pray, "Rescue me, save me!", we are often asking for deliverance from our present circumstances. Yesterday, after lunch, I sat down to make 25 ornaments for an ornament exchange. A group of ladies from my church banded together to do this so that we could do Ann Voskamp's Jesse Tree devotional series with our families during the upcoming Advent season. The ornament I signed up to make was City of Bethlehem. I thought, "I'll just order something from Oriental Trading!", since I was cut out to be creative but got sewn up wrong. (Think about that one for a minute; you'll get it, lol!) So, that is what I did. Unfortunately, when I unpacked my little kits, I realized that the ornaments were 7.5 inches in diameter. Unacceptable. With the exchange looming (in about 4 hours), and with dinner yet to cook, I was in a pickle. I sent up a prayer for HELP!
Off to Michaels I went. The good ladies there gave me some suggestions. I poked around and found some good deals on materials. Even though I was WAY out of my comfort zone, I headed home with a cheerful heart. All I had to do was to stamp the Bethlehem stamp onto the inkpad, stamp the blank ornament and let it dry. Everything was going great until I realized that the ink was not drying on the semi-glossy surface of the ornaments (which I had thought were like chalkboard, but were not). What to do, what to do....It was 4:00 by this point. Help, Lord! Miraculously (again), I found in a cupboard this can of spray fixative which I'd never seen before ... but how long would it take to dry? Google said 30 minutes. Whew! So, I sprayed all the little darlings and laid them in a large, flat box in the back of my car, to dry. I had also planned to stamp the reverse side, but the drying dilemma nixed that. I did think, though, that if I could by some miracle locate the gold Sharpie that was somewhere in my Christmas decorations I could write the Jesse Tree scripture assigned to "City of Bethlehem" on the back of the ornament without much fuss. Another prayer for help! God immediately told me where to find it. It was exactly where He said.
Now, look, there have been other times that I've gotten myself into messes, usually through my own poor decisions, where the Lord has let me crash and burn, ok? This type of rescue described above does not always happen in response to my frantic prayers. Simply put, God decided to show me His favor, and I am thankful, very thankful. I was thinking that, during the month of December, I'll use a picture of each of the Jesse Tree ornaments in my blog post, so that you can see how beautifully creative my FBC Cantons sisters are. Maybe some of you ladies would like to do this with "24 of your closest friends"! Here's the link:
http://www.aholyexperience.com/thegreatestchristmas/
There is one prayer for help that God always hears and answers. When a person realizes his or her own hopeless sinfulness, that without Him there is no hope for eternal salvation, and when Jesus is asked to save that person's soul, the answer is always a resounding, "yes". This is what Paul is talking about in 2 Cor. 6:2. Paul expounds upon this verse, however. He emphasizes that this critical decision, to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, must not be delayed. "Today (now) is the day of salvation". No one is promised tomorrow, you see. Although Paul was writing his letter to believers, he wanted to be sure that any "sleeper cell unbelievers" in the congregation heard the importance of making a heart decision for Jesus Christ right then.
There's nothing accidental about that heart decision. It is beautifully intentional, on the part of every person who hears the Gospel message and chooses Christ. It's not accidental; but, it IS miraculous!
Father, thank you for rescuing me, for allowing me to hear the truth about Jesus and giving me the grace to pray that prayer of salvation many years ago. I'm eternally grateful. I'm also thankful you sometimes miraculously haul me out of the ditches into which I often get myself. I praise Your holy name for Your pity, mercy and grace. In Jesus' name, amen.
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