A Last Effort

Bill Brinkworth
“We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. 2 (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)”
II Cor. 6:1-2

With fall around the corner, animal life is doing what God has programmed it to do as winter arrives in the North Carolina mountains. Squirrels are scurrying about with additions to their acorn caches. Birds are stopping into my garden to ravish what they can from my garden before they fly south. Spiders are weaving their last webs to trap food, I suppose to lay that last egg that will bring in their next generation in the following spring.

After walking into many of the massive webs and almost having a huge spider land on me and possibly bite me, I started spraying them with spider poison. One large spider did an unusual thing as the spray slowly took her life.

As she sat there dying, she spun one last silvery thread before her demise. She must have known she was dying, but she did her best to do what she needed to do while she still had time. Her priority was to finish that web before it was too late.

Many spend their last years as did that spider in her last moments. For their whole life, they do as they wish; little is done for the Lord, but much is done to make life on this earth pleasurable and comfortable for them. Much effort is put into buying, and building things for this life, but little, if anything, is done to prepare for the next life. However, when death is seen as imminent, a sudden change is made in their lifestyle. They scurry about like that spider did in her last moments to finally do something for the Lord. Ignored righteous living, Bible reading, church-going, and prayer time of the past get a higher priority before it is too late. They want to preserve their life for eternity, while they still have time.

It is good that they finally got their priorities right before it was too late! Some, however few, get saved in their last years. Many that were saved in their younger lives finally start making obedience to God’s commandments more important in their waning hours.

It is better now than never that they turn their lives around, but think of all the wasted time that could have been better served in living for the Lord. Think of all the heartaches, problems, and mistakes that could have been avoided if they had lived their life His way and not their own way. Think of how different this world would have been if all got saved at a younger age and immediately lived for the Lord and by His standards. Their living example may have guided many into living righteously also!

Are you 100% sure that if you were to die today or tomorrow that you would go to Heaven? Trust Christ’s death as the only payment for your sin now! You may not have tomorrow. Your heart may also get so hardened to the pleading of the Holy Spirit’s call for salvation that you may never get saved later.

Have you been saved in the past, but are putting off doing what God has already laid on your heart to do — read your Bible, pray, attend church, get involved in a ministry …? If so do it now, as you also have no promise of tomorrow, or the opportunity may be gone when you think you are ready!

“Do all the good you can by all the means you can in all the ways you can in all the places you can at all the times you can to all the people you can and as long as you can.”
— John Wesley —