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REDEEMING THE TIME…
The Bible opens with these Words…
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1
The question becomes “In the beginning of what?” This is certainly not talking about God’s beginning, for the Bible teaches that God had no beginning, and He will have no end (see Psalm 90:2). I have asked many people what they think this means and I have received almost as many answers. I prayed about what this was referring to and the Holy Spirit who wrote this passage gave me the answer. He said this verse is referring to “the beginning of time”. I then looked up what other commentators thought this was referring to, and to my delight, they all came to the same answer I was given.
So the question becomes “Why did God hide this truth?” Why doesn’t the first verse of the Bible just read:
In the beginning of time, God created the heavens and the earth.
As I asked the Holy Spirit about this, He told me that the greatest truths of the Bible are hidden “in between the lines”. It was for this very reason that JESUS spoke in parables. In Matthew 13, JESUS’ disciples asked Him why He spoke in parables to the crowds, and why He would only explain the meaning of His parables to those who had left everything behind to follow Him, and this is how He responded:
11He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
12For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
Do you understand what JESUS is saying? He is saying that God only wants those who have left all to follow JESUS to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Only those who completely surrender their lives to Him will experience a heavenly life here and now, and for all eternity.
In verse 12 JESUS is saying that whoever has the secrets to a heavenly life will experience more and more of the abundant life, and he who tries to hold on to his life and not surrender it to God, he will lose the little that he has. You experience life to the fullest by letting it go and surrendering it completely to God through JESUS Christ.
The hidden truth in the first verse of the Bible is that God created three things initially. He created time, the heavens, and the earth. So how do these three things fit together? Consider this statement:
God gave us all a limited time here on earth to decide if we wanted to spend eternity with Him or not.
Does that make sense to you? God doesn’t decide who will live with Him forever in heaven, we do. We are making the choice everyday by how much we live by His Word. On the day of judgment God will simply reveal what are true choice was. Many people are going to be in for a hell of a surprise on that day.
Once we truly decide that we want to go to heaven, the next question God asks us is:
“How many people do you want to bring with you?”
If we truly love God with all our hearts, minds, body and strength, our answer will be:
“As many people as possible.”
If that is truly what is in our heart, we will realize that we only have so many seconds left on this earth, and we will begin to spend each one in a way that will cause us to have the greatest harvest of souls.
From now on whenever you read your Bible, which I hope is daily, ask the Holy Spirit to help you discover the secrets to having a heavenly life, which are often in between the lines.
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