Short Time

There’s a phrase that some use when they’re about to retire called “short time.” Some even use this when they’ve discovered they have a terminal illness, and choose to live the life and do the things they’ve always wanted to do. In the 80’s, they made a poorly executed movie about it, where a retiring cop, due to a mix up at the hospital, mistakenly is told he has a rare and terminal blood disease. In the movie, he begins taking care of the family he’d been neglecting because of his planning for the future, and taking on more dangerous assignments hoping to get killed in the line of duty (and failing), as the pension would provide for his family.  I’ve been thinking about this phrase a lot since yesterday. A personal tragedy suddenly and swiftly struck a close family member yesterday (I’m keeping it vague to respect wishes). We are all on short time.

As I was praying this morning, I came to a realization: many came to Jesus for healing, whether from deafness, blindness, lameness, leprosy, even death. Jesus miraculously fed a crowd of 5,000 men (not including women and children) and another feeding of 4,000 men (again, not including women and children), yet all of these miracles were temporary! The fed would get hungry again, those healed by Jesus personally are no longer with us. This is why Jesus didn’t focus His ministry on the miracles, the feedings, or the healings. He understood there was a deeper condition, and that all of these works He did were temporary. The deeper condition is Sin, and Sin leads to Death, which is why Jesus talked about Heaven, Hell, and the Kingdom more than anything else.

Loved ones, since we’re on short time, what kind of people should we be? If we receive that miracle we’ve been asking for, it’s not for our sake, but for His, so how should we continue on? How should we live, considering that our time on earth is but a vapor? Let us, with full confidence in Jesus Christ, be Kingdom Minded. Let us remember there is a Good News which destroys the bad news: Sin keeps us from God, but Jesus Christ died, taking our punishment on Himself, that we might be reconciled to a mighty and Holy God. We have eternity in our hearts, a reconciliation with the Father, and the Holy Spirit of God dwelling within us because Jesus died and rose again. Ought we, then, to live in a way that shouts it from the roof tops? We’ve been freed from the bonds of sin and death! Let us, with joy and perseverance run the race as to win the prize! And let us proclaim His mercies to as many as will listen, so that they, too, may have peace and freedom through Christ Jesus! Time is short. Let’s not waste a single day.

2 Peter 3

This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.