IN HIS TIME - Part 3

Jesus didn’t say He’d be there just at the end to meet us when we arrive on the other side.
He says, “I AM with you always, all the way through.”
His light isn’t just at the end of the tunnel; He’s with us in the midst of the darkness and trials. He is the Light unto our path, the Lamp unto our feet.
It’s not enough to just run: we need to run with the right message, direction and timing.
We need to run with patience, endurance, perseverance and never give up.
These all relate to timing.
God’s not looking for showy sprinters, but good starters who finish well.
He’s training marathoners who will run together with Him.
He ran and finished His race well here on earth and opened up a better way for us, a new and living way. His race; we need His pace.

Too often, Christians follow wannabe shooting stars and end up crashing in ditches of legalism or license. These are poor and shameful substitutes for a personal walk in liberty with the Living God. Faith beckons us to cross the threshold, take a daring step through His revelation into the unknown, and then another and another, continually trusting God Himself has opened the way.
Jesus only spoke what He heard the Father speak. Only did what He saw the Father do.
So should we.

Only five centuries ago, much of the Church had so compromised its faith that it had lost its Christian outlook and world-view.
It had become mired in institutionalized form, rather than being a revolutionary force.
It had decided for scaffolding rather than substance.
It had so compromised itself that it became a maintenance-minded status quo of hierarchical, religious people-pleasers.
Called to bring truth to light, it had instead retreated into shadows of fear and mystery. Forsaking a clear stand in the truth of God’s Word, it had become spoiled by vain philosophies of men and painted itself into a corner, ironically defending pagan Aristotelian myth (the earth is flat and if you sail too far, you will drop over the edge) as God’s truth.
Similarly, to a large extent, so have we.

However, Christopher Columbus saw himself and his world in a different, divine light.
He derived both his identity and destiny to dispel darkness and break down old mind-sets from his namesake, Christ the Light-bearer.
He believed the Word of God. For him, Isaiah 40:9 described the ‘circle of the earth’ as a globe and this insight gave him the confidence that he could reach Oriental destinations by sailing westward. He did not believe the fear-mongers’ prophecies that he would fall over the ocean edge and perish. Rather, faith by God’s Word stirred his vision to look beyond the edge and see new lands…a new world to be discovered.
He further read, ‘The islands wait for Me,’ (Isa 60:9) and his eschatology and world-view were revolutionized. Only when the whole earth (including all those yet-to-be-discovered lands) had heard Christ’s gospel could the Lord ever come again… and not before!
Columbus realized he had God’s calling to answer, His destiny to fulfill, this job to do!
He believed His time had come. It was His time to step out in the boat.
Christopher was predestined to follow Christ his Light, break through old borders, open new horizons and discover new lands, all to the further glory of Christ’s name! Many could not grasp his vision, but Columbus sought to fulfill his part. His destiny called him into the unknown and he stepped out in faith on the Word of God.
He believed He was called according to God’s purpose, predestined by God.

Many of us face much this same dilemma in our day.
And here’s where either faith releases or religion entraps.
Rom 8:28’s ‘predestinate’ (the only form of ‘destiny’ in the New Testament) is the English translation of the Greek ‘proorizo’(4309 Strong’s Concordance). While others debated that this meant either the predetermined ‘fate’ of a sovereign God, or the answer of man’s preconceived ‘free will’, Columbus took it in its practical sense and turned his world upside down.
It literally means ‘pro’ = ‘before’ + ‘orizo’ = ‘limit, decree, boundary, horizon’; that is, ‘to see in advance’. As you approach what appears to be earth’s edge, the visible horizon steadily retreats before you. As you confront and break through the ‘old horizon’ boundary, whole new horizons repeatedly appear and further open up before you.
‘Predestinate’ then takes on a whole new perspective!
Rather than being trapped in some fatalistic box, you are now free to journey ‘before horizons’, confident He is leading you out of old world forms into new world vistas.
As in the natural, so also in the spiritual, God has also challenged and broken the religious, traditional, limiting horizons, the status quo, defeatist, God-in-the-box systems of unbelief. While others remained in port, complaining and making excuses why it couldn’t be done, Columbus set sail, opened up new horizons by faith and our world has never been the same!
He believed the Word of God rather than his contemporary fear-mongers.
He knew His time!
The Word of God releases faith to advance in the Spirit and discover new realms of His glory in the kingdom of God NOW!
That’s how the Spirit leads His children in faith.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
We are.. transformed into the same image (changed to be more like Jesus each day)
from glory to glory just as by the Spirit of the Lord!” (2Cor 3:17-18)
Even today, this same Spirit confronts and destroys old, religious, negative boundaries/mindsets and releases sons and daughters to walk in His kingdom faith
…it’s His Time!