Calls To Return

Having been told that the sentiment of wanting the good old days to return, is given voice in the Bible, we now go to the Scriptures, to receive encouraging, compelling spurs, to turn our desires into concrete, active practices. This meditation is expressly offered to show that looking to the good old days, or wanting to return to them, is always the desire of Father God. It is His calling and He will do all that He needs to do, to bring us back to this reality. In addition, He is the One who grants us the perfect grace of response.

Thy will, O God, be done in us, right here and now, as You take us through this most sensitive week of returning. Amen!

We are drawn to the children of God and how they rebelled against God and grieved the Holy Spirit. God was very angry with them and His wrath was so heavy upon them that they came to their senses and repented. They began to reminisce and long for the good old days. Then his people recalled the days of old, the days of Moses and his people – where is he who brought them through the sea with the shepherd of his flock? Where is he who set his Holy Spirit among them, who sent his glorious arm of power to be at Moses’ right hand, who divided the waters before them to gain for himself everlasting renown? Isaiah 63: 11 – 12.

These children of God wanted the good old days back, the days when they were friends with Father God, pleasing Him.   

Are we also not recalling the times of long ago, when we depended solely on the power and promise of God and knew His Hand daily, in our living? Here are words of Paul, as he admonishes the believers in Galatia, for being enticed to switch faith for law, as it were. These converts to Christianity, knew salvation by grace, through faith and not of law and works. However, some are giving it all up, to adhere to the works of law. Paul is encouraging them to return to their former ways of faith and grace.

You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying truth? Galatians 5: 7. The good old days for these converts, living the new life in Christ Jesus, must be returned to. They must give up all that is being taught to them presently; all that is contrary to what they were taught in the beginning.

Can Paul’s admonition be for us also? Are we being told and shown ways in which we have drifted from faith and trust in God’s ways and have taken on more of the world’s ways? We may not be doing anything different, or engaged in questionable, worldly activities. Nevertheless, our minds tolerate behaviours which at one time we frowned upon and quickly sought forgiveness for, from the Lord. We are more inclined to use catch phrases such as these. Every man to his own order. Everyone will do it, his or her way.

Will you agree that many of us need to stop pleasing the world, and return to the good, old days?