CHANGE OCCURS WITHIN TIME BUT IS NOT CAUSED BY IT

But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, "You are my God." My times are in your hands.

Psalm 31:14-15a

Saul the Persecutor became Paul the servant of God, but time did not make the change. Christ wrought the miracle, the same Christ who once changed water into wine. One spiritual experience followed another in fairly rapid succession until the violent Saul became a gentle, God-enamored soul ready to lay down his life for the faith he once hated. It should be obvious that time had no part in the making of the man of God.

My purpose in writing this little piece is not to engage in an exercise in semantics but to alert my readers to the injury they may suffer from an unfounded confidence in time.

Because a Moses and a Jacob lost the impulsive, headstrong sins of their youth and in their old age became gentle, mellow saints we tend to take it for granted that time wrought the transformation. But it is not so.

God, not time, makes saints.

Human nature is not fixed, and for this we should thank God day and night. We are still capable of change. We can become something other than what we are. By the power of the gospel the covetous man may become generous, the egotist lowly in his own eyes.

The thief may learn to steal no more, the blasphemer to fill his mouth with praises unto God.

But it is Christ who does it all. Time has nothing to do with it.

Thought

God acts within time. He sometimes uses time. But He is not limited by time nor chained to it. The time we have left does not determine the transformation we may experience. Our response to the Spirit within time does.

Prayer

Time cannot change me but You can, O Lord. My times are in Your hands.

https://www.cmalliance.org/devotions/tozer?id=484