Today Is the Day

No More Delays: What Are You Waiting For? | Day 21

“For he says, ‘In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’ I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” 2 Corinthians 6:2, NIV

Good morning, and welcome to the last morning of this journey together. This series opened with a question that would not let any of us sit comfortably: what are we waiting for?

We have carried that question through harvest fields and roadside towns, through our own hearts and our own kitchen tables, and this last morning it finally turns into an answer. We are not closing this series with one more thing left to figure out. We are closing it standing inside a promise that was already finished long before the first devotion was ever sent.

Called, Equipped, and Gone Before

Moses stood in front of Israel one final time, knowing he would not be the one to lead this people into the land God had promised them. The nation he was handing off to Joshua faced walled cities, entrenched enemies, and every reasonable excuse to stay exactly where they were instead. Moses did not tell them to find their own courage somewhere inside themselves. He pointed them to the source of it. “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6, NIV). The courage was never manufactured by the size of the army or the confidence of the plan. It came entirely from the character of the God who was already walking ahead of them into ground they had not yet seen for themselves.

That same kind of courage carries us into whatever this morning holds. Paul wrote about it from inside a prison cell, having already described what it felt like to have plenty and to have nothing at all, content in both. He was not describing how to win at ambition or achieve whatever we happen to set our minds to. He was describing a steadiness that does not bend with circumstances. “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:13, NIV). Whatever this day actually asks of us, a hard conversation finally had, a quiet act of faithfulness, an ordinary errand spent loving the people put in front of us, the strength for it was never something we had to dig up on our own. It is supplied, and it has been supplied since before we needed it.

The Day Is Already Here

Paul was quoting an old promise given through Isaiah, one his readers already knew by heart, and then he did something bold with it. He did not tell the Corinthians that a day of favor was still coming, something to prepare for and watch approaching on the horizon. “For he says, ‘In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’ I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2, NIV). He collapsed the waiting into a single word. Now. Not once we feel ready. Not once the circumstances finally line up the way we would prefer. Now, because God had already decided when the favor would fall, and he decided on today.

News like that should feel like something worth celebrating rather than something to brace against. When the exiles returned to Jerusalem and heard God’s law read aloud for the first time in a generation, many of them wept, undone by how far they had drifted from it. Nehemiah stopped the grief before it could settle in for good. “Nehemiah said, ‘Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.’” (Nehemiah 8:10, NIV). He did not deny what the people had gotten wrong across the years. He simply refused to let sorrow over the past have the final word on a day meant for celebration. This series has named plenty of what we have put off, avoided, and quietly delayed. None of that gets the final word this morning either.

That is because this was never a series about trying harder starting today. It was a series about a God who has been moving toward us the entire time, long before we noticed him doing it and long before we found the nerve to move at all. Twenty days of harvest fields, hard roads, honest mirrors, and full households have all been leading somewhere, and they were leading here, to a morning where the delay simply runs out and joy is what is left standing in its place.

All of it rests on Jesus Christ, who did not wait for us to become ready before he came looking for us. He lived the perfect life we could not live, carried the guilt of every excuse and every delay to the cross, and rose from the grave to prove that the day of salvation he offers is finished business, not a project still underway. He is the one who goes before us into whatever this morning holds, the one who supplies whatever strength today requires, and the one whose power is already at work within us far beyond anything we could ask or picture for ourselves. “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21, NIV).

Prayer

Lord Jesus, thank you for never waiting on me to get ready before you came to save me. Thank you for going ahead of me into every day this series has named, and into this one now. Forgive me for the mornings I mistook delay for wisdom, and thank you for a salvation that was never resting on my timing to begin with.

Holy Spirit, keep supplying the strength this day requires, and let it be joy that carries me rather than pressure. Thank you for this series and every morning of Scripture that kept pointing back to Jesus no matter where the road turned, and thank you that the story does not end here. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Thank you for reading these mornings, for sharing them, and for letting them sit alongside your coffee or your commute or whatever else made up your ordinary days. This series is complete, but the day of salvation it kept pointing to is not going anywhere. Carry that with you tomorrow, and the morning after, and every ordinary morning after that.

To God be the glory.

Pray, praise, and give thanks, for God is good and His mercy endures forever.

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