Seek the Lord while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. - Isaiah 55v6-7
As we move into the next few weeks, there will no doubt be more people returning to work, some schools may be reopening, and for a lot of people life may be returning to a measure of normality.
For many people, there will never be another time in their working lives where they have so much time on their hands… time where the hustle and bustle of normal life for a few weeks ground to almost a standstill. I have wondered what people have done with this enforced break; some have completed projects of different types, some are reading and writing, some are using the time to get fit while others are creating all sorts of delicious food in their kitchen.
Maybe, for this short while, you have time to consider the important questions about the purpose of life and your reason for being on this earth. As a Christian I would encourage you to take the advice of the Bible. Isaiah 55v6 says, ‘Seek the Lord while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near’. The Bible makes it clear that it is by no accident that we are here and that we have a responsibility to obey the God of the Bible, our creator. Again, the Bible says in Hosea 10v12, ‘For it is time to seek the Lord’.
Being obedient to God involves the realisation that we are not what God wants us to be and that we are unable to be the person God wants us to be on our own. It won't take you long if you are serious about finding out who God is to discover that God is pure, righteous and holy and that is what He expects of us. Unfortunately, we have a big problem… we are not pure, righteous or holy; our lives are tainted with the wrong things we do, the wrong thoughts that we have.
God is well aware of this but because He is righteous, He must punish these wrongs (the Bible calls this sin).The punishment our sin deserves is death and eternal separation from God. The Bible says in Romans 6v23, ‘For the wages of sin is death’.
This is when we discover that as well as God being pure, righteous and holy, He is also gracious and loving. In fact, He loves us so much that He sent His only Son into the world so that He might die, so that He might bear the punishment that my sin and your sin deserves.
So, we have thought that we are not what God wants us to be and we are unable to attain God's standard by ourselves. This then is simply what God wants us to do… believe that God’s assessment of us is true, that we are sinners, believe on His Son, Jesus Christ, that He took your place and bore the punishment you deserved and trust that He can save you because God raised Him from the dead and He is alive in Heaven today.
I would urge you to think seriously about these things while you have this extra time.