Jewels From The Word

At the telephone operators’ reunion, it always comes up.

“Hey, remember how Lavon pulled out in front of that semi (when we were car-pooling to Tulsa and it was my turn to drive) and she had her cigarette in one hand and her Pepsi between her legs? Everyone screamed. “Gun it, gun it! Lavon, look at his eyes!”

“I don’t have time to look at his eyes,” Lavon yelled back, with a few choice words thrown in.”

That was back in my rebellious days. I wasn’t living for the Lord. I wasn’t doing anything so wrong, unless you want to count smoking and cussing.

We sure had a lot of good times together, those girls and I did, but I had some hard times, too. Sometimes one of them took an extra turn driving because I didn’t have the money for gas or my old worn-out car broke down. There were two in particular that always seem to end up on the same shift that I did, so we almost always rode together, and they had to listen to all my sob stories all the way to Tulsa and back. There were times we all didn’t like each other very well, and sometimes we had our quarrels, but now I can’t remember any.

As I look back now I can see that God put us all together for a reason. Those girls were my support team. Jesus surrounded me with Christian women who could lead me back to Him. They showed me Christian love and never gave up on me.

“A man who has friends must himself be friendly: but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” Proverbs 18:24 NIV

I had one other friend, my Best Friend, during that time that never left my side, even though I wasn’t living a lifestyle befitting a child of God. Jesus was always with me. He had told me He would never leave me or forsake me, that He would go with me to the end.

 And when it seemed like the end had come, there Jesus was waiting to welcome me back home into the fold.

Until a couple of years ago, all I had ever heard about the Mayans was the archaeological discoveries made in Central America. Then suddenly everywhere you turned you were being told about the Mayan calendar which announced the end of the world in the year 2012.

We here in the US use the Gregorian calendar, which starts the new year on January 1^st , 2012. I don’t know what day the Mayan calendar starts the new year on, but I guess some archaeologist has determined the dates.

The Hebrew New Year, the holiday they call Rosh Hashanah, begins in the fall, this year September 28^th. It will be the Hebrew year of 5772.

Let me ask you a rhetorical question. If the God we worship, the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is going to tell us about the end of time, which calendar would He use to predict it?

God has been speaking to us for many thousands of years through His word, the Holy Bible, Old and New Testament. Is He suddenly going to start speaking to us through the Mayan cave inscriptions?

He has been using the Hebrew calendar for thousands of years to time all the events of His people. Is He suddenly going to point us to the Mayan calendar to schedule the return of the Lord Jesus Christ and the end of time?

As the New Year begins according to the Gregorian calendar in January, year 2012, and we celebrate a new beginning, let us go back to The Book of beginnings, the Bible, and the original calendar that God set in place.

Colossians 2:16-17 NIV, “Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.”

Christ Jesus Himself is our Beginning, our New Year, our Sabbath, our Holy-Day. We celebrate Jesus.

Let’s look forward and press on with Christ.