Today is the first day of the rest of your life. This was a slogan used when I was growing up. It made me realize that today will set the direction of the rest of my life.
You really never know what impact a day has. It was January 1979 and I got in a registration line at Baptist Bible College for second semester classes. Hundreds were in line, but I was in line behind a cute girl from Ohio I had never met. It happened to be my future wife, Judy. I have often wondered what would have happened if either of us had been a few minutes late or early.
Some days are full of expectation – weddings, birth, graduation, death, first day on the job, etc. These are days we know will make a major impact on our life. Others begin as normal, redundant days. And we may never know the influence of those days until years in the future.
In Mark 1:14-15 we have the account of Jesus’ first public message. This was a BIG day full of importance.
Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
John the Baptist’s end was Jesus’ beginning. John the Baptist was arrested because he publicly rebuked King Herod for taking his brother’s wife. He was committed to the fortress of Machaeus in extreme Perea. With John’s removal from the scene, Jesus began to preach the ‘Gospel.’
John’s message of ‘Repentance’ led to Jesus’ message of the ‘Gospel.’ John sought the wilderness – Jesus sought the cities. John expected people to come to him – Jesus went to the people. Jesus was a preacher who did wonderful miracles, not a miracle worker who sometimes preached.
Jesus preached the ‘Gospel’. This is from the Greek word, Euaggelion, which is the same word used in Mark 1:1. It means ‘good news’ Jesus preached the ‘good news’ of truth, hope, peace, God’s promise, immortality, & salvation.
Jesus preached the ‘Kingdom’. It was the hope of the Jews to have a King and a Kingdom. Jesus told them that the kingdom was ‘near’ or imminent. All was ready. If they accepted the King, the Kingdom would follow. His message was more about Someone reigning rather than the land ruled.
Jesus preached the importance of ‘Now’. All the centuries of preparation and prophecy reached their fulfillment when Jesus arrived preaching the ‘Gospel of the Kingdom’. All eternity hinged on Jesus.
The most important time is right now. Too many worry about the past or fear the future. However, we should do what we can and should today. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. The decisions you make for Jesus right now will affect all your tomorrows.
Two words explain how this kingdom can come about. No two words together have been used so much by Christian preachers:
Jesus preached ‘Repent’.
The Greek word used, Metanoia, means ‘a change of mind that results in a change of behavior and lifestyle. Some people think repentance is mostly about feelings, sorry for your sin. But repent isn’t a feeling word. It is an action word. It is a change of direction, not just sorry for what we have done.
Repentance does not describe something we must do before we come to God. It describes what coming to God is like. If you are in New York and I tell you to come to Los Angeles, I don’t need to say ‘Leave New York and come to Los Angeles.’ To come to Los Angeles is to leave New York, and if you haven’t left New York, you certainly can’t come to Los Angeles. You can’t come to the kingdom of God unless you leave your sin and self-life.
The danger of repentance is when we narrow it to an emotional sense of guilt, identified and acted on at one particular time. Repentance is the turning away from one’s one path to that commended by God. Perhaps ‘change of heart’ is the best explanation. Repentance is a lifestyle.
Jesus preached ‘Believe’.
To repent is to reverse the direction in which we are going; to believe is to move with full and reckless abandon in the new direction.
Faith has a content. Jesus said they needed to ‘believe the gospel.’ They needed to turn away from what they were trusting in – their confidence in their physical relationship to Abraham – to a belief in the good news concerning Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus is the good news.
Have you repented and believed in Jesus?
Have you made Jesus the King of your life?
Today is the best day to make the decision to trust Jesus as your Lord & Savior.