05/25/18 - Acts 16

May 25, 2018

At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized. Acts 16:33

Don't delay obeying what The Lord tells us to do... Take action immediately.

Here’s a secret that Satan doesn’t want us to know … his number one weapon against our faith is not attack or trouble, it’s simply DELAY!  All Satan wants to do with us is delay our obedience one more day… sometimes even just one more minute.  The longer he can get us to delay, the more his temptations can have their hooks in us.

That’s why DAILY Decisions for God are so crucial!  Every single spiritual decision or moral decision is practice on whether we will listen to God or listen to Satan.

All of us feel that struggle daily – we decide whether to sleep in 15 more minutes or get up and spend 15 minutes with God.  We postpone that decision to go to church, or be baptized, or serve the Kingdom, or invite a friend, avoiding the effort or change it will require in us.  Many have felt the whisper of God to get involved and pushed the calling down for “later”.  And I would bet every person has delayed calling or visiting a person they needed to ask for forgiveness or restore a relationship with.  Delay is not in God’s Dictionary … it’s in the book of Satan!

To be clear, that doesn’t mean God speedily does things.  He is the author of ‘Wait’.  Waiting is not delay, it is active preparation for God’s perfect timing.  God prepared daily for the right time to send Jesus.  Jesus served and taught while waiting for the cross.  The Holy Spirit waited 50 days to appear at just the right time on Pentecost.  Waiting is not delay, because waiting is deciding to prepare and take action FOR the day the wait ends. 

Are you truly waiting or delaying?  God says: Today is the Day of Salvation.  Are you delaying or deciding?  Jesus called us to: Love God with all our heart, soul, mind & strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Delaying or Deciding?  We are instructed to: Follow Jesus, and to : Go and Make Disciples.  Delay/Decide? 

Every Sunday at Journey (and most Christian Churches), people are given a choice.  DECIDE!  Stop listening to the delays of Satan.  Make the choice to DO what God tells you to do.  Even in the middle of the night when you discover God has offered you the chance to DECIDE – just like the jailer.  Don’t let Satan spoil your future (and your eternity) by delaying another minute.