Seven Days A Week, 24 Hours A Day, 365 Days A Year
Some jobs are full-time employment, which usually means a certain number of hours one works each week. A job would need the promise of a massive salary if it required the employee to perform seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and 365 days a year. It would also need to include a daily nap or sleep time for me.
Having celebrated Thanksgiving Day recently, I thought of how the Lord promises to love and care for us full-time, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Moses pledged to God’s people that “The eternal God is your refuge, and his everlasting arms are under you.” (Deut. 33:27)
Psalm 121:3 speaks of God’s faithfulness and love for his children. “He will not let your foot slip- he who watches over you will not slumber nor sleep.” God promises that around the clock, he is watching over our lives both now and forever.
God asks us to trust his love for us and seek to listen to him, and follow what he tells us faithfully. It seems strange that Christians have tended to think of God as only worthy of time and attention on Sunday or the Sabbath Day. Do we ignore God’s word and will on the other days of the week?
It may be hard to keep God as a priority in the everyday events of life. Colossians 3:23-24 says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for men. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” As God’s chosen people, “Whatever you do in word or deed, you are to do it in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:17)
We are challenged to let the word of God dwell in us and shape us daily in all we do with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. We need to bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances we have against others. With love as our greatest priority, we are to forgive as the Lord has forgiven us. Since God makes it clear he is available to us seven days a week on 24-hour bases, why would we ignore him as if we only can make time for him on Sunday?
In church on Sunday, we may confess the truth of God by confessing the ancient creeds of the Christian faith, but words become empty by how we live and act. So it is what we confess about God and how we act because of what we say about God. Our actions either confirm our words of faith or prove they are worthless.
Jesus warns us with these words; everyone who hears my words and puts them into practice is wise, like one building a house on a rock. That house will withstand rain and floods. But everyone who hears my words and does not put them into practice is foolish, like one building a house on sand. That house will be destroyed by rain and flood. (Paraphrase of Matthew 7:24-27)
Jesus made the world better by obeying His Father’s will. So we will, too, when we act in Jesus’ example.
