An Appointment Book

Busy people tend to keep an appointment book — perhaps as an app on a cell phone or a computer — to help organize their days. Quickly jotting down the time of a medical appointment, child’s music lesson, or a planned outing with a friend reduces the likelihood of times and dates slipping away and helps keep our lives in order. After all, the palest ink, even if it is electronic, is better than the best memory. God has written about an important appointment in His Book, the Bible. It is written down for men and women so that it is less likely to disappear into a fog of forgetfulness. If you flip through God’s Book, the Bible, to the Book of Hebrews and find chapter nine and verse twenty-seven, you would read that “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” It is an appointment that each member of the human race will keep. At this judgment God will require each person to give an account of what they have done in their lives. “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Romans 14:1212So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. (Romans 14:12)). You may miss a doctor’s appointment, an anniversary, a child’s birthday party, or any other type of appointment made with people, but God in His almighty power will see to it that this appointment is kept.
Are you ready to stand before a just God and give account of your deeds on earth? You will not be called on to compare your life to others. Nor will you be asked to give account for your parent’s, spouse’s or child’s actions, but you will have to give account of your own life. From beginning to end, God will judge every bit of it with unerring righteousness. The best time to realize that you are a sinner is NOW in this life before death and judgment overtake you. As long as you draw breath and are alive, it is not too late to turn from sin to God who loves you and ask Him for forgiveness. But after death there won’t be an opportunity to change your ways. One lifetime is the allotted time you have to make the all-important decision to trust Christ. Life down here is like an appointment book with a limited number of pages. On one of those pages it needs to be recorded that you placed your faith in the Saviour and started walking with Him if you ever want to reach heaven.
An appointment book may help order your life, but for a life to be truly well-ordered before God there needs to be repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise, sin will rule in the heart, and sin is the great disorderer of human life. Disorder, disarray, chaos, confusion and turmoil are the bitter fruits of sin, and the place where these dreadful things will be at their worst is the darkness of hell where lost souls will spend eternity. No matter how out of order your life may have become because of sin, the Lord Jesus can restore you to the paths of righteousness. Will you place your faith in the Saviour who can fully deliver from the power of sin?