is it too late?...

when we talk about GOD’s promise and GOD’s plan i know it’s easy for some to think “it’s too late for GOD’s plan.  i wish i had gotten on to this earlier.  at my age, i made some decisions and i’ve wasted years.  there’s no time for GOD’s plan any more in my life.  there’s time to love GOD maybe in my life but there’s no real time for GOD’s plan in my life.”  oliver wendall holmes said this about old age.  he said, “to be seventy years young is far more hopeful than to be forty years old.”  some of you are seventy or fifty or sixty years young.  you’ve got a lot of life in front of you.  GOD has incredible plans for your life.  it is never too late for GOD’s promise resulting in GOD’s plan in your life.  you have no idea what GOD wants to do with the rest of your life.  it is not too late.

how do you get on board with that?  how do you stay focused on GOD’s plan?  let’s admit it.  it’s easy to get focused on other things.  it’s easy to get sidetracked.  here’s the practical step with this one.  how?  do it every weekend.  you do it as a part of gathering with other CHRIST followers to worship together.  because that’s where we interact with GOD’s word in a way that reminds us of HIS promise and HIS plan.  we look at HIS word together.  we see HIS promise together.  we understand HIS plan together so we can hope together. 

you should read GOD’s word as a part of your everyday life.  spend five or ten minutes each day to read five or ten verses out of the bible.  you should do that.  but there’s also something about getting together with other CHRIST followers.  being together and talking together about GOD’s word, it tends to lift us up together.  and there is strength in that.  so how do you keep on board with GOD’s plan?  you get together with other people who want to keep on board with GOD’s plan.  that’s where you get the encouragement.  when we worship it is a reminder together that GOD has a bigger plan. 

here is a great verse.  jeremiah 29.11 (nlt), “for I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “they are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”  hope is not just feeling better about it.  if you feel better about it today you can feel worse about it tomorrow.  that’s just up and down.  hope is a whole new way of looking at life.  the way of looking at life that enables you, enables you to be patient with the things you can’t change and to have faith to act for the things you can change.  to get on board with GOD’s plan. 

just a thought from the front porch…