PRE POST AND IN BETWEEN
No, the Lord’s delight is in those who fear him, those who put their hope in His unfailing love. (Ps.147:11)
Lord help us all to focus on delighting you! Notice, the plan is to delight the Lord. We all get delighted when things go our way, the challenge is to maintain our delight in the Lord. The more we are delighted in Him, the more we can be sure we are a delight to Him.
Last week, we were blessed to be reminded that we were and are and always will be worth what the Lord did for us. Wow…how great is that. We received a pre-Christmas blessing. Now we are set for the after Christmas season. As I thought about this, I saw a picture of our lives in relation to Christ.
There was a time before we met Him. I often hear people say that they always knew Him, but we know that is not really true. There comes a time when we realize that we may have known about Him, but it is far different from knowing Him.
When Christ was born, there were people waiting for the great happening, but most of them missed it. A few seriously celebrated. Simeon and Anna added more thoughts for Mary and Joseph to ponder. Herod wanted to kill the child, but other than that, the whole wonderful birth was ignored by most.
Sadly, the good news is often ignored by a majority of people even after it is presented. There are many things that the enemy uses for interference. Of course, there are those who take delight and the delight dims. If we are honest, we probably all have those times. Hopefully they are very short in duration.
After 30 years, when Jesus came on the scene, everything started again. People who had been looking for Him, refused to recognize Him, and ultimately cheered His death. Many of those ignored His resurrection, but many also believed and here we are today.
The Bible is so full of God’s love and patience and still people sit in between! Let me clarify. Some choose to get in and like the seed in hard soil, they in but between. They are between delighted and ok, I am here, now what?
I know many people who seem to ignore the big deal of what God gives us. This is often because we miss Jesus’ promise of Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth. If we think about it, the pre, post, and in between is a continually recurring cycle in our lives. Something happens, we make an assessment, and then we see how it turns out.
As we head into a new year, we can rejoice that with God every day is a new day. Old things have passed away. Yesterday becomes a teacher. We can choose to delight the Lord more each day.