The angels rejoice in heaven over one sinner who repents and turns to God. The angels rejoiced when Christ was born, saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth, and good will toward men.”
One day there will be no more today. One day each of us will die, and only God knows when that day will be. Solomon said we can enjoy the pleasures of this world in our youth, but there will come a day when we have to account for those which did not please our Maker.
Whether we die by accident, sickness, or disease when we are young or old is only known by God. We have no promise of tomorrow and are to pray ‘If the Lord wills, we will do this and that tomorrow. We are to ask God to help us reverence His Name, to be forgiven and forgiving, have our bread supplied, kept from temptation, and delivered from evil; Today.’
Today is therefore the only day of salvation. Jesus is our High Priest today. Jesus is praying for our salvation today. Jesus is our sacrifice for sins today. Jesus is willing to forgive us today. Today you and I can call on Him to save us, to forgive us, to change us into His likeness, to develop His character in our hearts and minds. Tomorrow we may have died, and find ourselves standing before Him without the covering of His Blood, His Grace and His Mercy.
Today is the day of salvation!
I have heard you in a time accepted. Now is the accepted time! (Isaiah 49:8)
Paul taught us that if we judge our own selves, then we will not need to be judged after we die. If we repent of our sins now, our sins are already judged by Christ on the cross.
If we don’t repent before we die, our sins will have to be dealt with at the judgement.
Shakespeare said some wise words about opportunities today that may never come again.
“There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune:
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.”
Julius Caesar, iv. 3.
C.S Lewis reminds us of the need to look to Christ instead of to our own self.
Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
Today is the day of salvation!