Thursday: Mastery of the Times-and-Seasons Mentality
WEEK 6
THURSDAY
MASTERY OF THE TIMES-AND-SEASONS MENTALITY
Luke 17:20-21
We come now to note another mastery—the mastery of the times and seasons totally, by the mentality of receiving power for the business of witnessing. “Those who had gathered together asked Jesus, ‘Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?’ Jesus replied, ‘It isnt for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority. Rather, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses’” (Acts 1:6-8). Here the disciples were turned from studying doubtful traps of the future to receiving power to live effectively in the present.
This is important; for had this mastery not taken place, this redemptive movement would have dissipated in the sands of speculation about the future instead of being turned into channels of redemption to meet human need here and now. A little twist of interest toward times and seasons, and all Jesus had accomplished in his life, teaching, death, and resurrection would have been canceled or rendered inoperative. The Christian movement would have died. Paul checked this tendency:
I asked you to stay behind . . . so that you could instruct certain individuals not to . . . pay attention to myths and endless genealogies. Their teaching only causes useless guessing games instead of faithfulness to God’s way of doing things. The goal of instruction is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. Because they have missed this goal, some people have been distracted by talk that doesn’t mean anything. (1 Tim 1:3-6)
Paul called them from religion as talk to religion as doing, from guessing games to love that issues from a pure heart.
When we see how much time is wasted and attention diverted by trying to understand times and seasons in religion, we see why Jesus turned them from maps of the future to roads into the present, from mysteries to masteries. They would have been prognosticators of events instead of preachers of the Event. The Christian movement would have been relegated to the growing pile of might-have-beens. But Jesus closed that door—“it isn’t for you to know”—and opened the door to power through being his witnesses.
O Jesus, my Lord, save me from bypaths and help me walk the Way. When my mind is seduced from single devotion to you and your emphasis, save me. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I shall not be curious about coming events but consecrated to that which has taken place, the cross.