Why not today?

"Yes, I am coming soon." Revelation 22.20

Our preaching series in Deuteronomy is coming to a head. "Choose now! Choose life!" Moses was desperate that the people he had led out of Egypt, the people that he had shepherded through the wilderness for 40 weary years, the people whom God had chosen for blessing and as his instrument of judgment, yet who remained as ignorant of their true vocation as ever, would finally get it - and respond appropriately to God.

His plea rings through the ages and expresses every preacher's desire for those being accosted with the Gospel imperative today: "Choose now! Choose Christ!"

I'm going to give it my best shot in church today but the world-weary cynic inside me says the day will come and go like every other. Nothing and no-one will change. Yet that would be to forget the hidden imperative which has been the church's secret weapon in persevering and enduring through the ages: the expectation of the Lord's imminent return.

We believe that it will happen, so one day will be the day that it does happen. This invests every day with a potential that lifts it out of the "groundhog" category, where everything stays the same. Every day could be the day when that for which we desperately hope and pray actually occurs: whether it is the conversion of a child or the end of war in the Middle East. Because one day the Lord will return...