¿Cuántas veces nos despertamos nosotros por la mañana y hablamos de comenzar un nuevo día? Muchos de nosotros hicimos eso aún hoy, ¿no es así? Sin embargo, hablando bíblicamente, nosotros no comenzamos un nuevo día cuando nos despertamos, sino que continuamos el que comenzó la tarde anterior. Y eso es una distinción importante.

Dios no hace ni dice cosas caprichosamente. El siempre tiene una razón para cada palabra, para cada acción, y la creación ciertamente no es una excepción. Dios empezó el ciclo de un nuevo día por la tarde porque Él deseó que nosotros comprendiéramos la necesidad de descansar ANTES DE empezar nuestras actividades. Nosotros, por otro lado, lo hemos puesto al revés y hacemos el "trabajo más difícil o pesado" primero, y entonces caemos en la cama, agotados y necesitados de descanso. ¿No haría más sentido  seguir la pauta de Dios y descansar primero—utilizando Su fuerza—y ENTONCES salir a hacer cualquier cosa que Él nos ha llamado a hacer en ese día?

Cuándo María y José se dieron cuenta que su hijo de doce años, Jesús, se había perdido, ellos volvieron a Jerusalén y Lo encontraron en el Templo. ¿“No sabíais que en los negocios de mi Padre me es necesario estar? fue Su respuesta ala preocupación de Sus padres.

El negocio del Padre. ¿No es eso lo que nosotros debemos de hacer también? ¿No es eso así como debemos de pasar nuestros días? Pero cómo podemos hacerlo así si nosotros no hemos pasado primero un tiempo con Él, como Jesús hizo la práctica de hacerlo regularmente—escuchando Su voz, Su Palabra, Su dirección, estando en contacto con Él, y aprendiendo a descansar. Porque es cuando descansamos en Él que comprendemos lo que Él ha propuesto para nosotros hacer y permitirnos a responder de acuerdo a Sus propósitos.

Demasiadas veces nosotros pasamos corriendo de un lado al otro todo el día—trabajando, jugando, prestando servicio, atendiendo a los demás— y todo por medio de nuestros propios esfuerzos. Y nos preguntamos entonces el por qué no tenemos un sentimiento de un logro duradero cuando hemos terminado y por qué todo lo que  queremos hacer es dormir y recuperarnos de las actividades del día. Quizás es porque nosotros lo tenemos todo al revés. ¿Por qué no tratamos de cambiar las cosas pensando primero en que su día empieza en la noche, cuando usted se acuesta a descansar? Use algo de este tiempo estando en contacto con  Dios—antes que usted se duerma, y en el momento que usted se despierta—y entonces, descansado y refrescado, continúa el día en Su fuerza, en vez de en las suyas propias. Habrán muchas más oportunidades para que usted logre mucho más del negocio del Padre.

 

            How many times do we wake up in the morning and speak of starting a new day? Many of us did so even today, didn’t we? And yet, scripturally speaking, we aren’t starting a new day when we wake up, but rather continuing the one that started the previous evening. And that’s an important distinction.

            God doesn’t do or say things capriciously. He always has a reason for every word, every action, and creation certainly is no exception. God began the cycle of a new day in the evening because He wanted us to understand the need to rest BEFORE beginning our activities. We, on the other hand, have turned it around so that we do our “busy work” first, and then fall into bed, exhausted and in need of rest. Wouldn’t it make more sense to follow God’s pattern of resting first—drawing on His strength—and THEN going out to do whatever it is He has called us to that day?

            When Mary and Joseph noticed their twelve-year-old son, Jesus, was missing, they returned to Jerusalem and found Him in the Temple. “Didn’t you understand that I must be about My Father’s business?” was His response to their concern.

The Father’s business. Isn’t that what we are to be about as well? Isn’t that how we are to spend our days? But how can we do so if we haven’t first spent time with Him, as Jesus made a practice of doing regularly—listening for His voice, His Word, His direction, communing with Him, and learning to rest. For it is as we rest in Him that we understand what He has purposed for us to do and are enabled to respond accordingly.

Too many times we run ourselves ragged during the day—working, playing, serving, ministering—all in our own strength. And we wonder why have no feeling of lasting accomplishment when we’re done and why all we want to do is sleep and recover from the day’s activities. Perhaps it’s because we have it all backward. Why not try turning things around by first thinking of your day as beginning at night, when you go to bed to rest. Spend some time communing with God—before you fall asleep, the moment you wake up—and then, rested and refreshed, continue the day in His strength, rather than your own. Chances are you’ll accomplish a lot more of the Father’s business.

 

Es asombroso como cuántos de nosotros que somos creyentes nos sentimos satisfechos por haber sido "sacados" y se olvidan que Dios también quiere "traernos". Estamos contentos con el proverbial "seguro contra incendio" que nos protege de una eternidad en el infierno y sin embargo nos importa muy poco cumplir con nuestro propósito que Dios-Ordenó durante nuestra breve residencia en este mundo.

Recuerdo cuando recibí la salvación de Jesús en 1974 y oí al pastor decir, "Si Dios no tuviera un propósito para su vida, la llevaría directamente al cielo en el momento cuando usted decidió ser una creyente". Tenía solamente 26 años entonces, con una vida de oportunidades adelante de mí, que podría utilizar para servir Dios—o a mí misma. Tristemente mis elecciones no siempre han sido las correctas; como resultado, yo malgasté mucho del tiempo que pudiera haber sido utilizado para cumplir los propósitos de Dios para mi vida. Me sentí contenta de haber sido “sacada,” mostrando muy poca consternación de tener una asociación con Dios para "traerme" a Su Reino. Ahora, en mi séptima década de mi vida, mi arrepentimiento más grande es el tiempo que desperdicié sirviéndome a mí misma, en vez de servir a Dios.

La mayor parte de ustedes están detrás de mí en el viaje a nuestra morada celestial, con más tiempo por adelante para tomar las decisiones correctas. Yo los animo a estudiar hoy el libro de Deuteronomio y aprender del tiempo de los israelitas en el desierto, como ellos vacilaron entre obedecer a Dios y hacer su propia voluntad. Pero, últimamente, esa es la llave para ser traída al cumplimiento del propósito de Dios para nuestra vida—obediencia. Si Dios dice "doble a la izquierda" pero vamos hacia la derecha, acabamos de tomar un desvío del sendero que Él ha marcado para nosotros. Ser obediente a Dios hoy nos asegura que acabaremos exactamente a donde Él nos desea que estemos mañana. Y esa es la razón por la cual Él "nos sacó" en primer lugar.

            No se lo pierdan, mis queridos amigos. Seguir el plan de Dios para que Él nos “traiga adentro” es la única forma de encontrar el gozo a plenitud que es lo que todos buscamos…

 

            It’s amazing how many of us believers are satisfied to be “brought out” and forget that God also wants to “bring us in.” We are content with the proverbial “fire insurance” that spares us an eternity in hell yet care little about fulfilling our God-ordained purpose during our brief sojourn here on earth.

            I remember when I was first saved in 1974 I heard a pastor say, “If God didn’t have a purpose for your life, He would take you straight to heaven the moment you became a believer.” I was 26 then, with a lifetime of opportunities ahead of me, which I could use to serve God—or self. Sadly my choices haven’t always been the right ones; as a result, I wasted much of the time that could have been used to fulfill God’s purposes for my life. I was content with being “brought out,” showing little concern about partnering with God to “bring me in.” Now, in my seventh decade of life, my greatest regret is the time I spent serving self, rather than God.

            Most of you are behind me on the homeward journey, with more time ahead of you to make those right choices. I encourage you today to study the book of Deuteronomy and learn from the Israelites’ time in the wilderness, as they vacillated between obeying God and doing their own thing. For, ultimately, that’s the key to being brought in to the fulfillment of God’s purpose for our life—obedience. If God says “turn left” but we go right, we have just taken a detour from the path He has marked out for us. Being obedient to God today assures us that we will end up exactly where He wants us to be tomorrow. And that’s the reason He “brought us out” in the first place.

            Don’t miss it, beloved. Following God’s plan to “bring us in” is the only way to find the joy and fulfillment that we all seek….

 

            We humans were made in God’s image, not the other way around, though we often forget that great truth. As a result, we have a skewed view of God, of the world, of life, and of ourselves. The only way to make it right is to put God back in proper perspective. That means we can no longer examine Him under the microscope of our finite reasoning, but rather behold Him through the telescope of His Word.

            Our pastor has been teaching on God’s sovereignty, including the fact that by virtue of His sovereignty we have only one choice if we are to live in proper perspective as those made in the Sovereign’s image—we must adopt a servant attitude. Because we live in a wonderful country that has allowed us to participate in government, we often lack the understanding of what it means to live under sovereign rule. Those who live under a king or dictator or some other form of sovereign leadership understand much better than we. The difference is that our Sovereign is not human and therefore not limited by human abilities or tainted by human sin. But our call to servanthood is no less a reality; rather, it is more so, as our relationship to the Sovereign of the Universe is eternal, rather than temporal.

            God is beyond our understanding because He is perfect and we are not. He is beyond our comprehension because He is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent; we are not. He calls ALL the shots, not just some of them, and He has no need to consult us before He does so or apologize if we don’t like the outcome. And He was under no obligation to send His Son to pay for our sins so that we could once again have relationship with Him.

            But He did. And that is the most stunning aspect of His personality to fathom. A perfect, all-powerful God, who needed nothing from us and owed us nothing, humbled Himself to come into our presence and reveal to us as much as we were able to understand about our Creator, as much as we needed to know to acknowledge Him as Sovereign Lord and willingly and joyfully give our lives over to His service. And because He did so, we are without excuse if we do not respond.

            An old Dennis the Menace cartoon so aptly depicts our necessary stance before a sovereign God, as it shows the little guy kneeling at his bedside, cowboy hat askew and plastic gun still holstered around his waist as he folds his hands in supplication and says, “I’m here to turn myself in.”

            We with our crooked cowboy hats and plastic guns may think we’re in charge of our lives, but it is only because we have not understood that it is we who are made in the image of God, not He in ours. Throw away that microscope that minimizes the Sovereign of the Universe to One who exists to serve our needs, and start studying God through the telescope of the Scriptures. I promise you that very soon your magnified view of God will give you a servant’s heart that wants nothing more than to fulfill the purpose for which He has created you.