NOW

By Lloyd Ellefson

The fulfillment of the spiritual realities in Christ as revealed in the scriptures, has to come to us today - in the NOW - not yesterday, nor tomorrow! NOW is the day of salvation! It's not tomorrow; for yesterday's tomorrow is today. When tomorrow comes, it's today; it's NOW! Yesterday is past; tomorrow is not here. We live in the NOW. We are living in whatever sense of being we have NOW. It has to change NOW by the enlightenment of Christ - not tomorrow. Christ comes to us as the mind of the Spirit. He is a teacher; He is an anointing that teaches us things that the natural man cannot see, for man cannot see beyond the veil.

Jesus does not come tomorrow; He comes today. If we expect Him in the days, months or years to come, this time will never come, for He can only come to us today, in the now. As long as people predict that Jesus will come physically in the sky some day, it will always be a future event; it will never come, because that is not the way He comes. He comes IN THE NOW. The rapture, tribulation and millenium are not coming in the sense in which they are generally understood and preached. No rapture, tribulation, nor millenium will come tomorrow. They come in Christ and are fulfilled in Him because HE is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. Christ is the sum of all things!

Though man would like to extol his accomplishments or offices, it is not good for him to do this. He gives himself credit for his achievements. He may think he has become a little better by receiving the Holy Spirit, or by becoming a preacher, etc. This culminates in labelling himself as pastor, teacher, evangelist, etc. If he is legalistic, he will proclaim his do's and don'ts, his virtues, his constant prayer life, and his readiness for Jesus to come and rapture him away. However this is not good. Eventually our inner integrity will deny it, because every man in his inner being knows (and he has to know), that he has failed God and will do so again. He also needs a hope for the future.

Jesus Christ is NOW! This undoes the whole system of rationalization. When we receive and retain the things of Christ in our own nature, they remain in mortality. If the realities in the Bible only come into our realm of reason, they do not come into life; they do not produce life, nor do they last. Christians will not live that way; they live by the Christ who is their life! He is their life NOW, because He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If we receive Him as our life, the change to become like Him begins by the fact of Him being here NOW.