Too Late

There are times in our lives that we figure things out when its too late, however there are plans that must be made for our eternal security that need to be made now.  For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation [2 Corinthians 6:2].

We find in [Acts 16:22-24] that Paul and Silas were imprisoned, Paul had angered some merchants when he freed a young woman from possession.  These merchants derived their living by exploiting the  possessed girl's ability to tell fortunes.  Her owners delivered Paul and Silas to the magistrates, who had  Paul and Silas beaten and thrown into prison.  Now Paul and Silas could have said, "Its been a long day and we have been wrongly accused and beaten; let's go to bed and start tomorrow fresh."  But they didn't do that, the bible says that at Midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises to God [Acts 16:25-26] and suddenly an earthquake shook the prison and loosed everyone from their bonds and opened all the cells.

The keeper of the prison was so distraught because he thought that all the prisoners had escaped that he took his sword and planned to kill himself, because he knew that if one prisoner escaped that he would have to pay for it with his life.  It is here that Paul stopped him from leaving this life without eternal security.  Paul said, "Do thyself no harm: for we are all here."  The keeper of the prison immediately asked them, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"  Isn't this counter intuitive, this is the same man that planned to kill himself mere moments earlier, and now he has come to the realization that he wants to be saved before it is too late.

Paul and Silas responded by saying, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house."  Isn't it great to realize that a saved person will persist until he convinces his entire family to be saved.  Now again, Paul and Silas didn't waste any time; they preached the word of God to the keeper and his family that very night, and also baptized them.  Isn't it great to realize the timeliness in which the apostles worked within; they didn't put anything off until tomorrow; they acted swiftly, moved by fear of losing one soul.

Will you act swiftly now and accept Christ Jesus, or will you wait until its too late?

Bread In The Wilderness

In Mark 8 we find a well known miracle performed by Jesus; the four thousand being fed.  However there had to be a choice made by the disciples to not only [1]share what they had, they also had to [2]trust Jesus with what they had.

Have you ever had company over to your house and said to yourself, (I wish that they would hurry up and leave so I can get me something to eat.  I would gladly share but I don't have enough to give everyone)  I assure you that I understand this because I have been on both sides of the situation, lol.

But Jesus saw things so much differently than we do, he said: "I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat:"[Mark 8:2]  Now, I must say here that there are some people who won't leave until you give them something to eat, lol.  The bible talks about these sorts of people also.  However, here we find people that have traveled great distances to follow Jesus and be healed, they have stayed for his ministering word, and now are too weak to leave.  Have you ever been exposed to the word, and fellowshiped so long, that you lost track of time?

Jesus had compassion on the multitude but his disciples experienced helplessness, they felt powerless to do anything about the situation.  (And his disciples answered him, from whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?)[Mark 8:4].  Now that is an extremely hard hearted statement my friends, the disciples should have known by that point, that all good things come from God! [James 1:17].   God can take the little that we have and to exceedingly, abundantly more with it than we can even think to ask [Ephesians 3:20].  Jesus chose that moment to do the works of the father[John 5:19] and commanded his disciples to bring him what bread they had [Mark 8:5].  We find here that in obeying the command from Jesus, the disciples also found a few small fishes[Mark 8:7].  Isn't that amazing, because the disciples followed the command, they found so much more than they had hoped to find, and what they had and found turned out to be a blessing to others [Mark 8:8-9].  Because the disciples were willing to share what they had, God left them with more than they had in the end.  What started as seven loaves and a few fishes, fed four thousand hungry people, and what was left was seven baskets of food.  See what can be done when we take what we have and put it in the master's hand; its his anyway.

How many people are broke today because they trusted a banker or some other wall street type with their money; when you place what you have in God's hand, you don't ever  have to worry about loosing what you have.  You will find more than you thought you had, you will even find bread in the wilderness.

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