The Lie Called Later
By Pastor Justin Cooper
I have a list somewhere of things I meant to get to. The oil change I put off until the light came on. The phone call I kept meaning to return until it was too late to matter. It is a strange thing about you and me — we can fully believe something is important and still slide it to tomorrow, and then to next week, and then somewhere we can no longer find it.
That habit is harmless enough with an oil change. It is not harmless with your soul. And there is an old story I keep coming back to that says it better than I can.
The way I heard it, the enemy called a meeting to plan how to keep people from being saved. One voice said, "Tell them there is no God." That would never hold — creation shouts otherwise. Another said, "Tell them there is no hell." That would not work either — the conscience knows better. Then a third spoke up with the winning idea.
"Later always becomes never."
Pastor Justin Cooper
Gospel Light Baptist Church
"Tell them it is all true," the third one said, "there is a God, there is a hell, the Bible is real — but tell them they have plenty of time to wait." And the enemy smiled, because he knew what you and I so easily forget: the word "later" has buried more people than the word "no" ever did.
Here is the good news underneath the warning. When Jesus found Nathanael, He did not merely see the man's sin — He offered Himself as the answer to it. Everything you have been trying to fix in your own strength, patching over like fig leaves stitched together, He stands ready to make new. He is not a distant idea. He is a Person, and He speaks plainly:
"I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."
— John 14:6
Whatever you have been searching for — a way to mend a broken heart, to fill the hole, to leave the dark and step into the light — He says, "I am Him." The waiting was never protecting you. It was only costing you.
The time is not later.
The time is now.
So here is your next step, and I mean today, not someday. Stop treating this like a decision you will circle back to. If you have never trusted Christ, settle it — right where you are, you can turn from your sin and put your faith in Him. If you already have, then do the thing you keep postponing: send the message, make the call, invite the person you have been meaning to invite. Move the most important thing off the "later" pile for good.
Gospel Light Baptist Church | Walkertown, NC | unsubscribe
