One Day, One Thousand Years?

August 1, 2009

Dear Fellow Travelers,
Holy tamole, it is August!! I am telling you guys, it will be September in just a few minutes. The older I become the more I realize what Peter meant by his “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day,” especially, the last part. Oh well—
In my reading to prepare for my sermon tomorrow, I came across something from John R.W. Stott’s book, “The Message of Galatians” (p. 179), that in my opinion is worth sharing with those of you who read my perspectives. Listen up: “And what is there about the cross of Christ which angers the world and stirs them up to persecute those who preach it? Just this: Christ died on the cross for us sinners, becoming a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). So the cross tells us some very unpalatable truths about ourselves, namely that we are sinners under the righteous curse of God’s law and we cannot save ourselves. Christ bore our sin and curse precisely because we could gain release from them in no other way. If we could have been forgiven by our own good works, by being circumcised and keeping the law, we may be quite sure that there would have been no cross. Cf. Galatians 2:21. Every time we look at the cross Christ seems to say to us, ‘I am here because of you. It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am paying, your death I am dying.’ Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross, that we shrink to our true size. And of course men do not like it.”
This is merely my perspective, so factor that into your response: When we are living in the truth of what Stott has written, time really does fly, a thousand years is as one day; however, when we are living outside the parameters of this truth, time seems to be at a standstill, one day is as a thousand years.