Now Is The Time Of God’s Favour! (The Gospel)

Have you ever wondered about your relationship with God? The Bible says,' "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you."I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.' 

The Bible says that NOW is the time of God's favour! What does this mean? Have you paused to weigh the magnitude and the consequences of this divine statement? Above all, it must bring to our notice the understanding that God's favour does not and will not go on indefinitely. God's favour is not eternal, it has an end.

We are living today in a most precious and wonderful period of mercy and grace, when as the Bible says, God is seeking to reconcile the world to himself. To reconcile means 'to restore to friendship and harmony.' God is thus seeking to bring us back to his love. 

The next logical question would be 'why do we need to be reconciled?' The answer is as simple as the question. Because 'all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God'. And the righteous, pure and Holy being of God simply cannot tolerate the sin that prevails in us.Therefore, since we are born in the chains of sin, we are consequently born as enemies of God. And thus, the great need for reconciliation.

How then, does God intend to restore men to harmony with himself? The fairness and justice of God is such that he cannot allow sin to go unpunished. 'For the wages of sin is death'! Imagine the dilemma.His infinite love for man on the one hand and his righteous hatred of sin on the other. And alas, man is steeped and lost in sin, sin which must be punished by death!

Oh but here, in the hopelessness and unworthiness of man, has been revealed the mercy and grace of God. For through the process of reconciliation was performed, the greatest demonstration of love, the most glorious act of sacrifice that the world has or will witness! But what was this act of reconciliation that gave us, as the Bible says, 'the right to be called Children of God' ?

The answer is complete in this: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." He sent his son, Jesus to die on the cross, to take your place and mine, to suffer the death, the agony of punishment and the wages of sin that should have been ours. The Bible says, 'For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.' Jesus was the sacrifice, the price that God paid to restore men to his favour and love so that he might call us his children. 

1 John 4:10 says, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." And Romans 8:31-32, "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" Do we then dare to reject or scorn the love of God? For Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. Noone comes to the father except through me." This means that if you reject Jesus, YOU ARE REJECTING GOD! 

This is what the Bible says, 'if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.' As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." '

Listen carefully to what the Word of God says. If you believe in the message of the cross you will be saved, if you trust the name of Jesus you will never be put to shame! We are not told to buy the favour of God by doing good, nor to exercise any institutionalised or man-made practices of religion, nothing born of human effort or intelligence, rather we are told only to accept God's free gift of undeserving mercy and kindness to us- 'That while we were still sinners, Jesus Christ died for us!'

This is why we are living in a period of grace, for this is the time of reconciliation when God is waiting for men to repent and believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ. This is the time of forgiveness, this is the time of mercy, this is the day of salvation! 

But God's great mercy and grace will not abound forever. This is the time of mercy, but oh, there will come a time of judgement! A time of wrath and anger when the righteous judge will condemn sin and wickedness without mercy. "See, the LORD is coming with fire, and his chariots are like a whirlwind; he will bring down his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire."At that terrible time, God will long to show mercy because of his boundless love, but that period of goodwill has been sealed forever. And all men who have not believed in his name and turned away from the darkness will be condemned to perish for eternity! For there is no more hope! 

This is what the Bible says about that day:  

Ezekiel 7:7-9

Doom has come upon you,

    upon you who dwell in the land.

The time has come! The day is near!

    There is panic, not joy, on the mountains.

I am about to pour out my wrath on you

    and spend my anger against you.

I will judge you according to your conduct

    and repay you for all your detestable practices.

I will not look on you with pity;

    I will not spare you.

I will repay you for your conduct

    and for the detestable practices among you.

Then let us turn to God while his great mercy and grace still flows on us. For the wondrous, incomparable love of the cross still beckons to us today. 'Now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation!' Let us seize this free offer of life, while it still stands. For this is what the Bible says to those who have repented and accepted Jesus as their saviour: "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." God's love, once received is unceasing and eternal! Receive it today!