So here we are, "The Day After", secure in our spiritual environment and in the company of one another. Isn’t it great to be alive and in the service of God?
We have all been told about all of the great things in the past year / century / millenium (1999 was all of those!), but what are we going to do in Y2K? This may be Year 2000, but it is also…
Y2-KNOW
This is an excellent opportunity for you to acknowledge the place of God in your deepest longings. There is within normal man, a deep and insatiable desire for the knowledge of God.
It is only when men have seared their consciences by their denial of Divine rule and their obstinate choice of sin’s pleasure that God releases us from His providential Hands. Never forget that your refusal to have God in your knowledge compels His withdrawal from our lives. Where then will you go?
- Y2K is the time to know God and His will for your life.
- Y2K is the time "to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:19, cf. vss. 17-18).
- Y2K is the time to know how to live in holiness. This means "that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor" (1 Thessalonians 4:4). Without holiness as a daily characteristic in your life, you will not see God (Hebrews 12:14).
"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." (Matthew 7:7-8, NASB)
If you know God, you already know how great is His love and mercy. The great blessing of Divine forgiveness is ours because of "the riches of His grace which He lavished on us…according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him" (Ephesians 1:7-9).
Surely, we who have been so greatly blessed cannot fail to see just how great is the Divine desire for our every need. Whatever we may confront, it is God’s will that our needs be supplied. Take a few moments to consider the context of the passage cited at the beginning of this section, always remembering that this is exactly how God feels about YOU:
"Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!" (Matthew 7:9-11).
Is it possible that you have forgotten how important it is that you daily knock upon the door of the Divine storehouse? Hear the prophet:
"‘…test Me now in this,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows’" (Malachi 3:10).
Indeed, so great is the mind of God toward His people that He has explicitly promised,
"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith the LORD" (Jeremiah 29:11-14).
Beloved let this be the year you knock!
Y2-KNEEL
We have now come full circle. Isn’t it interesting that the thing that brings you to God also keeps you there? No man ever came to God standing before Him in obdurate arrogance, and no Christian stays in His presence without bowing before Him.
Just recently, Lee and I attended a showing of the acclaimed movie, Anna and the King (the politically correct and refreshingly moral remake of Anna and the King of Siam and The King and I), and we were reminded that some cultures expect honor to be shown to dignitaries. In one scene, as Anna wondered why she was being addressed as "Sir", she was told "Because no woman stands in the presence of His Majesty, the King." At every turn in the story, we encountered honor: Children bowed before their teacher and the king, and no one stood in the presence of the king without his explicit permission.
Sometimes people wonder why we insist on order and decorum in worship, and why we expect that every Christian will offer to God the very best of his life, his dress and his words. Quite frankly, it is because God is worth it!
- Bow before Him in respect
- Bow before Him in obedience
- Bow before Him in prayer
Hear and heed the words of Paul,
"But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him" (1 Thessalonians 5:8-10).
