Assistant Pastor’s Notes Ephesians 4:32
“And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.“
(Ephesians 4:32)
The New Year has arrived. It’s now 2021. For some 2020 crawled by ever so slowly. For others the year flew by. That’s the way it is with time. Someone said “A watched pot never boils.” Someone else said “Time flies when you’re having fun.” And so it is with every time we consider. Pastor Shellabear recently pointed out Benjamin Franklin’s astute conclusion regarding time: “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
Three stages of human history in the Bible reveal our shortening lifespans: Pre-Flood (600-900 years), Genesis 6:3 (120 years), and Psalm 90:10 (70-80 years). The phrase “process of time” is mentioned five times in the Bible, and every occurrence is associated with death, war, or some other negative event. The indifferent-seeming summary “it came to pass” occurs more than 400 times in the Bible.
But God has given us several insights regarding this precious commodity of time. We are told that God inhabits eternity (Isaiah 57:15), knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10), has been in existence from everlasting (Psalm 93:2, Micah 5:2), and has been working out His wonderful plan since the beginning of time (Ephesians 1:4, 1 Peter 1:20).
God is omnipotent and omniscient. These terms describe the truths that He is all-powerful and all-knowing. God is also everywhere (omni-present), and everywhen.
God knows the very number of hairs on your head, and yet He cares about even the little sparrows that fall to the ground. How wonderful that you and I are much more valuable to Him than the sparrows! (Matthew 10 and Luke 7). Let’s be encouraged in 2021 to “number our days” and to “apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).
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