GOD’S GRACE IS IN CHARGE OF TIME

Every New Year celebration reminds us we have no control over the passing of time. We only watch it go by. Not so with God. He isn’t a helpless bystander who wrings his hands hoping for the best or winces when things go wrong. Time is His creation. It must serve His purposes. His grace is in charge, as He proved by sending His promised Son ‘when the time had fully come.’ Not a moment too early. Not a moment too late. Jesus entered time at the precise moment circled on His calendar of Grace.
God has a gracious purpose for the time He has given you too. “All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:16). You were born at exactly the right time. Later you were adopted as God’s child through Baptism. Since then you have had time to grow in your knowledge of Jesus and mature in trusting His grace.
But often we ask, “How long, O Lord? How long before this problem goes away? How long before things change? How long before you take me to heaven?” God’s answer is, “When the set time has fully come.” He encourages you to “humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time” (1 Peter 5:6). He knows when the ‘due time’ is, the ‘set time.’
When you bake a cake, you put the pan in the oven, set the timer and wait. When the time expired, you took the cake out to cool. God’s grace is in charge of time. When His timer of grace went off, Jesus came.
The answers to all our prayers in this New Year are governed by that same timer, that same grace.
May the Good Lord abide with you in this New Year, blessing you and yours.

Pastor James E. Norton
Romans 1:16