This Day in History: 0000-06-20
June 20 – Joel 2:1, & 11-14
Sound the trumpet in Jerusalem! Raise the alarm on My holy mountain! Let everyone tremble in fear because the day of the Lord is upon us.
The day of the Lord is an awesome, terrible thing. Who can possibly survive?
That is why the Lord says, “Turn to me now, while there is time. Give Me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Don’t tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead.”
Return to the Lord your God, for He is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He is eager to relent and not punish. Who knows? Perhaps He will give you a reprieve, sending you a blessing instead of a curse. Perhaps you will be able to offer grain and wine to the Lord your God as before.
Are we ready? The day of the Lord is surly coming, will we be able to survive?
I love these verses in Joel, because they point out how deeply our Savior wants us to turn back to Him. Always. If you’ve never read the Bible in its entirety, I strongly urge you to do it! Start today. I think one of the many things that will jump out at you with the whole picture is how patient the Lord is. How He gives people opportunity after opportunity to come back to Him. It’s always what He wants. So badly!
Whether it was the nation of Israel in the Old Testament era, or all the people of the world in this New Testament era, God pleads again and again, from Genesis to Revelation: “Turn to me now, while there is time. Give Me your hearts…”
On the other hand, He is also a God of justice. That is another thing that will likely stand out to you if you read the entire Cannon. He will not contend with rejection and rebellion forever. He gives His warnings, He offers time, but when people’s hearts are hard, the day of His judgement always comes. It is a terrible day, and none of us want to be on the receiving end of that deal! Why would we ever wait?
The Bible says He is eager to relent and not punish. Eager! There is nothing He wants more than for us to come running into His merciful and compassionate arms. Nothing He wants more than to shower upon us His unfailing love. It grieves Him to curse the people who reject Him. He would much rather send blessings on us as we put Him in His rightful place in our lives.
So, let’s come to Him now! Today! Let’s give Him our hearts. Let’s be filled with deepest grief over our sin and rejection. Let’s mourn for what we have done. Let’s fast and pray and rend our hearts before our great and merciful God. For the day of the Lord is coming! Let’s raise the alarm, and make sure the world knows, the time is coming, it is upon us! Let the world tremble in fear. And may each and every one of us chose to answer His call and give Him our hearts so that we will be able to face that day with nothing to fear.