Sunday Reading: James 5:7-8
Key Verse: James 5:8
8 You also be patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of your Lord draws near.
Devotion:
I don’t know if you have ever tried to grown anything but whatever you try to grow it’s not going to happen instantly. I can remember growing a bean as a small child and marvelling that such a huge plant could come from such a small seed and to be able to see the difference each day as well. But in order for that bean to be able to grow you had to water it because without that water it would very soon shrivel up and die. As you get through school and study plants under the microscope you begin to see just how much of a plant is actually water and then realise why it depends on that water so much.
Besides the water, patience is something you need when you try to grow anything. When we are growing up we long to be ‘big’ when we are small and the older you get the more you want to be small again. But you also learn that time does not stop or shift for any of us. We live within time and we must put up with the fact that time will continue passing and will eventually run out. But just as we think that we have plenty of time to do anything we also find out that we do run out of time for many things in life. When we have run out there is no going back and grabbing that time again because it is simply too late.
God wants us to be sure that we do understand time and then to realise that we are running out of time as each second passes by. We do not know when Christ is going to return but we can be sure that it will happen. And when that moment passes we would either have been ready or we would not have. God wants us to establish our hearts within His love so that we can be sure that we are ready for His return and that we will not find out in one heart-stopping moment that it is suddenly too late! We need patience to wait until that time but we also need to make sure that we nourish our souls constantly so that when that time does come be will be good to go as well!
Points to Ponder:
How long do you have to live?
What is Christ came in two minutes time?
