Today Is The Day Of Salvation

We 'hew out' our own capacity... the past compounds and affects the present but today is an important day...

"...for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water." - Jeremiah 2:13 ESV

We want joy and peace but we watch 2 hrs of television and spend 15 minutes in our Bible or maybe no time at all. We lust and that lust digs out places where the water is going to pour out.

Just repent. Repent means to change your mind and set your eyes and face somewhere life-giving.

"If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." - Colossians 3:1-4 ESV

"But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." - Hebrews 3:13 ESV

"Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, "In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you." Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." - 2 Corinthians 6:1-2 ESV

Today.

Today is the day of salvation.

Turn to Him and weep and mourn if you must but then laugh and leap for joy because you have a fountain filled with living water to drink from.

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He Adds No Sorrow With It

Most things in life have some kind of 'price tag' or 'downside' attached to them. Maybe you have an idea of what it is upfront but most of the time you find out later. Commitments have a downside you don't expect. Medicines have side effects. Surgeries fix one thing but break something else.

Then there is this...

"The blessing of the LORD makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it." - Proverbs 10:22 ESV

"He opened the rock, and water gushed out; it flowed through the desert like a river." - Psalm 105:41 ESV

God's grace is this one way flow. We just position ourselves in or by the river. Sometimes that river just finds us at our lowest place when we have no strength.

It isn't a 'trade off'. It is a flow we receive or reject.

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Hopeless... But Now Having A Hope That Maketh Not Ashamed

Hopelessness is when we lose all confidence in ourselves, other people and have no sense that any powerful being cares or notices us in a real way.

"Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called "the uncircumcision" by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands-- remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." - Ephesians 2:11-12 ESV

That was us before... after believing in Jesus we have this...

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." - Romans 5:1-5 ESV

'...hope that maketh not ashamed...' (KJV language) is a realization that because we are JUSTIFIED in Christ (verse 1) God notices us. We have access. We have a place to stand. We 'rejoice in hope of the glory of God'... God isn't going to remain invisible... His glory is a revealing of His brightness and person...

This hope has nothing to do with other people or how we perform or succeed... love gets poured into us... our sufferings are producing room for that love... we don't suffer because we are forgotten... God Is going to be revealed because we are not forgotten... We have peace 'with' God. That is not just a cessation of conflict. It is a shared peace.

"Uphold me according to your promise, that I may live, and let me not be put to shame in my hope! Hold me up, that I may be safe and have regard for your statutes continually!" - Psalm 119:116-117 ESV

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