Christian Tract Outreach

“Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have mercy on him, and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways, my ways, says the Lord, but as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts and my ways than your ways.”

There is a very popular way of thinking, which seems to be prevalent in many church circles, that God is saying that we are the ones who decide when we will answer his call to repentance, and that he is always just waiting for us to turn to him. This is enhanced by the way we quote Jer 29:13, “You will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all of your heart.” We seem to have decided that when the Lord says through his prophet Isaiah, as quoted for us in 2Cor 6:2 “At the acceptable time I have listened to you and helped you in the day of salvation”, that we are the ones to decide that acceptable time.

The danger with that way of thinking is that we are trying to take the control of our lives out of our God’s hands, saying in effect that we know the best time, and that we will come when we decide, i.e. God is at our beck and call. Sadly, to our cost, many of us seem to be unaware of what the Master says in the verses leading up to that statement in Jer 20:13, because in Jer 29:10 we read, “Thus says the Lord,”When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise, and bring you back to this place.” And in Verse 12 we read “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.”

He appoints the time, not us!!