Holiness: God Creates Time for Us, Pt. 3

Yesterday, I considered that holiness somehow has to do with inviting God back into the time, space, and matter He created for us, just as He has invited us back into a relationship with Him through Christ. I'm still pondering, but before we get into that, I want to look specifically at how God has created each of these for you and me. Today, I want to explore the nature of time.

Before God invented it, time was non-existent, and despite living in a postmodern world, God continues to exist outside of it. Yet, He knew we would need it. We would need something by which to measure the times and seasons and our activity under the sun. So, enter the clock or sundial, day and night. Whether second, minute, hour, day, week, month, or year, time is a necessary component of our world that enables us to organize birthdays, death days, anniversaries, workdays, holidays, and everything in between. By it we judge growth whether crops, character, performance, and height.

When God created Adam and Eve, He placed them in a garden and would fellowship with them in "the cool of the day" (Gen. 3:8). God purposefully would leave His abode to enter into and interact with His creation. He set us in a garden and gave us His time and attention while at the same moment creating boundaries which we could not cross by forbidding them to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He gave us space away from Him, whereby we could exercise our free will. When Adam and Eve fell, God, rather than speaking in terms of eternity, began communicating to us in terms we could understand. In the New King James Version, "time" is mentioned over six hundred times: “the fullness of time,” “it came to pass,” and “appointed time.” Just look at the different times and seasons God has ordained for us that Solomon mentions in Ecclesiastes three. He made time in order that we might observe His movements in the earth.

When people make time for us, we realize that we have their attention, and throughout Scripture, we see God continuing to create time for us.

· Jeremiah 33:3, "Call to Me, and I will answer and show you great and mighty things which you do not know."

· Jeremiah 29:12, "Then You will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you."

· Galatians 4:4, "But when the fulness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons."

Feel free to explore the many more instances of God speaking and interacting with humankind in Scripture. My point is that God specifically creates and sustains time for us to dwell in and communicates to us within it so that we will draw closer to Him. In fact, God doesn’t think, “Boy, why couldn’t Renée have approached me at a better time? There’s a war going on!” No, the moment I call, in my time, He makes Himself available to me.

When we realize that time is something created for man's use and convenience, we recognize how unnecessary it is for God and His work. Yet He chooses to operate in it so that we can enjoy our journey with Him.

With four boys, we have taken a lot of road trips, and when the boys were younger, they would continually ask, "How much longer?" or "When are we going to get there?" Walter and I were very aware of the time, but we had already understood the route we were taking and the when of every turn. However, the boys did not, so we would inform them that they would have the same knowledge we possessed and could then enjoy the journey to the destination. The same is true with God and time. His knowledge is so far superior, yet He created time so that we could enjoy this journey. I know you're asking yourself, "What does this have to do with holiness?" Be patient. We'll get there shortly.

Let's Pray:

Father, thank You for creating time for me. I'm amazed that I have access to the Eternal, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent God of the Universe at will, and it's all because You have created and interact with me in time. Lord, open my eyes to see that I may be holy, for You are holy. In Christ's Name. Amen