Month: December 2017

Writing letters of recommendation is a wonderful opportunity to say good things about people. It is an opportunity to help others continue to grow.

Have you ever wondered what kind of recommendation we would need if we had to apply for salvation? Would we need to vouch for our perfect characters? That would be hard to come by. Would we need someone to say what hard workers we are? The problem with that is works are not a ticket to heaven. It is given by grace.

Actually what we need is not someone to write a letter of recommendation; rather we need to proclaim the impossibility of obtaining a recommendation adequate enough to get us in. We need an attorney. And that is exactly what we have. In I John 2:1 we read, “…if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:” He is a great attorney. He has earned the right to do something for us we cannot do for ourselves. He can declare us innocent. Now that is what will get us into heaven.

Written in 2000

If you are a precise, persnickety, pernickety, perfect, particular person there is a website just for you. It is www.time.gov. This wonderful location gives you the official United States time. You can set your time zone. It even tells you just how precise it is. Usually it is within one half of a second. This site is a chronologist’s dream. No longer do you have to scan the short wave bands of your radio listening for the “knock, knock” sound that indicates you are tuned to the broadcasting of the official GMT. Now you can bookmark this site and instantaneously know the time.

Wanting to know the time is not a modern phenomenon. In Acts 1:6-7 we read, “When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, ‘Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?’ And he said unto them, ‘It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.’”

History has seen its time setters. All of them have had to invent fanciful explanations for the obvious failure of their predictions. When one pauses to think about it, it really is not a good idea for us to know the exact time of Jesus’ return. As hard as we might try not to do so we would regulate our behavior in harmony with the announced time. That is not so good. We need to live our lives by the principles of God’s kingdom regardless of when our Lord should appear—that is the key to the abundant life.

Written in 2000