Sunday
6th December
Those final pages of the Old Testament, penned by the prophet Malachi,
read like a quiet but arresting, even threatening, drumroll that stops one in
one’s tracks and compels careful stocktaking of those “3Ts”: Time,
Treasure and Talents. Of course, Malachi’s words point first and foremost to
the First Coming; but as one reads his prophecy there is an ineluctable double
message as one looks beyond the Crib and the Cross to the final culmination of
all things in the Second Coming. Our recent Stewardship Sunday focused
primarily, and rightly, on the second of the 3Ts, our money and possessions;
but what about the use of our talents - those natural gifts
and abilities with which God has endowed us and of which He will expect us to
give account and especially our time? God exists outside time as
we know it, and we need to remain constantly aware that His perspective of
time, from seconds and minutes right through to centuries and millennia, is not
ours, and that no span of time is too short to matter to Him. So we need
regularly to ask ourselves hard, daunting questions: what will we be found
doing, or thinking, at the moment of His sudden, final appearance
(Mal. 3:1)? Are we living out our faith each and every day in the
power of His Spirit with that prospect in view, producing lasting spiritual
fruit, encouraging and serving the needs of others, with our senses focused
expectantly and unwaveringly on that inexorably approaching Light?
Sommes-nous prêts pour le retour de Jésus ? - Il pourrait
réapparaître à n’importe quel moment; donc utilisons-nous bien chaque instant
de nos vies ?
Simon Robbins
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