Daily Manna · Day 358 · December 24
Now Is the Accepted Time
“(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.)”
You may have a list of things you will do once life settles down: deal with the drinking, forgive your father, really pray instead of only meaning to. The list is not lazy, and every item on it is sincere. But it is several years old, and nothing on it has moved.
Paul is quoting Isaiah here. In Isaiah 49 God speaks these words to His Servant: "In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee." Paul takes that promise, made to one person, and turns it toward the people in front of him. Then he says "now" twice in one breath: "behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Nobody says "now" twice unless a door can close. Look, too, at where the sentence sits. In the King James Bible the whole verse is printed in brackets. Just before it, Paul has begged the Corinthians "that ye receive not the grace of God in vain." He breaks off in the middle of his own argument to say "behold, now," and then he picks his sentence back up on the other side. The urgency was real enough to interrupt his own letter.
That is what to carry away from this verse. Scripture never offers you a calmer season in which to answer God. It offers this one. It is inconvenient and unfinished, and it is the only one you actually have. The easier time you keep waiting for may never come, and the waiting has already cost more than the doing would have. Today the door is open, because God Himself has called this "the day of salvation."
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 358 is Keep the Door (Psalm 141:3).