Hello, and welcome to Enbolden, living a bold Christian life. I'm Chris Shutter, an ordinary Christian living with and learning about an extraordinary God. Thank you for joining me on spending 30 days of praising God. One of the things I really struggle with is patience.
Whenever I hear something about being patient, it usually either makes my eyes roll like, hmm, yeah, patience, or it makes me feel like maybe I just won't be able to accomplish whatever it is because I lack in patience. Which maybe look at 2 Peter 3, 9. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
You know, it's a strange conflict we humans live out. We all know that everything will die, but we will live as though we never die. As though the ones we love will never perish. As Christians, when we don't acknowledge this full truth, we can trick ourselves into thinking we have time to finally obey God or to have that salvation talk with our son or daughter.
Having recently completed a study on Revelation, it's become clear to me how I'm living that half-truth. I have people in my life that I really want to be an eternity with. People that I love and don't want them to be prey to Babylon's voices. So today I'm praising God for the time and for our continuance of living in this age of grace for his patience with us.
I've heard the evangelist Joyce Myers say on a number of occasions that we don't know when the events recorded in Revelation will take place, but we are certainly one more day closer. And once those events unfold, the age of grace will become the age of judgment. Revelation 22, 17 says, the Spirit and the bride say come and let the one who hears say come. Let the one who is thirsty come and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.
The study of Revelation was difficult to hear at times until you get to the last couple of chapters. Then you see the overwhelming beauty of the new Eden unfold. And you can't help but say I want that. I want that for myself and the ones I love.
You certainly don't want what takes place in the chapters before. Even in those chapters though, fraught with despair and destruction, God adds his holy pauses. He gives us more chances to turn to him. He gives us more time, more grace, more than what any of us deserve.
I've read that God will only prolong our trials until we finally get it, until we finally just trust him and obey. It's like he really doesn't want to pull that trigger. He has such immense patience with us. But the door is ever so slowly closing while he beckons more of us in.
And it's closing to be sure. Until that door is closed and we are gathered up into the heavens and into the new Eden, I want to use this God-given time wisely. I want to take advantage of this age of grace and help squeeze the people I love through that door. Have a great day.
Fill day. I'd love to hear from you and find out more about how you are living out your bold Christian life. You can find me on Instagram at embolden- minus the O or at my blog at embolden.net.