Today

 

Virginia Brandt Berg

1970-01-02

God bless you and may He hearten you with the message of today.

Someone has said that today is a marvel of opportunity, crucified between two thieves, yesterday and tomorrow! Today, this very day, is one of the most wonderfully precious things you will ever have.

Today you can do some of the things that you’ve been putting off for so long. You can’t do them yesterday and may not have the chance to do them tomorrow, but today is yours! Today you can be the kind of person you always dreamed you’d be “tomorrow.” This is that tomorrow!

You’ve always intended some “tomorrow” to get right with God; this is that tomorrow. Your yesterdays are left with God, and none of its disappointments should be dragged into this day. Tomorrow is still unborn and you shouldn’t borrow from it. Today is yours.

Today—filled with golden opportunities and pregnant with great possibilities! This is the golden tomorrow that you dreamed about yesterday. We bring you this little poem of our own:

Long have I dreamed of some of the things
I’d like to do tomorrow.
Dreamed them and planned them, resolved,
And then discovered to my deep sorrow,
Time would not wait, but moved swiftly on
As I heard my conscience say,
“This is the golden tomorrow
That you dreamed of yesterday.”

There are many things I want to say
To friends I love, tomorrow.
But they’ll have to wait another day
Till more leisure I can borrow.
Thus I delay, until conscience calls,
“See how time’s passing away?
For this is the golden tomorrow
That you dreamed of yesterday.”

I’ve always dreamed of tomorrow,
Today I somehow forget,
I just keep on dreaming and waiting,
Though I know I shall regret.
For in the power of some crisis hour
I will hear my conscience say,
“This is the golden tomorrow
That you dreamed of yesterday.”

Then when I reach God’s great tomorrow
At the end of the long, long trail,
I’m sure that someone will ask me,
“Why in this thing did you fail?”
And I know I will read the answer
In my record there at last,
That I always dreamed of tomorrow
Until each today had passed.

So I paused today in my dreaming
To breathe an earnest prayer
To One who has seen all my failing,
To One that I’m sure will care:
God help me each hour to remember,
And every step of the way,
That today is the golden tomorrow
That I dreamed of yesterday.

Now all of this would have little weight, said in such human, feeble words, unless we would bring you God’s Word, and here it is. Listen carefully and give your soul a chance. Hebrews, 3:13 through 15, and I’m reading from the Amplified Version, thus:

“Warn, urge, encourage one another every day as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened into subtle rebellion by the deceitfulness of sin; that is, by the fraudulence, the stratagem, the trickery which the delusive glamour of sin may play on him.

“So while it is still today, if you would hear his voice, and when you hear it, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, when the people provoked and embittered God against them.” Now note carefully that this passage admonishes a number of times against putting off until some other day the hearing of God’s voice and obeying it, because this causes a hardening of the heart, the Scripture says.

If as you read God’s words you are impressed by the Holy Spirit that you should obey something which is written there, and you say in your heart, “I will, Lord, but not today!” if God in His still, small voice speaks to you to draw nigh unto Him, and you say, “Oh I intend to, Lord, but I’m not ready today; some things I’ve got to make right first, I’ve got to get myself ready.”

You can’t get yourself ready anyhow; you’re never fit to enter His presence. Only God can get you ready; only He can do that. He says “Today.” Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. “Today if you will hear his voice, harden not your heart.” (Hebrews 3:15)

When God speaks to the Christian’s heart to stop all the feverish rush and tension and get quiet and spend some time in prayer and the reading of His Word, and that Christian says, “I can’t today, but tomorrow I surely will, Lord. Not today, I’m too busy.” and this happens again and again, the hardening process does begin to take place.

For this is really a resisting of God’s Spirit. Soon the Holy Spirit will not speak of this. What’s the use, when we don’t listen and obey? He says, “My Spirit will not always strive with man.” (Genesis 6:3)

There is a little sentence I wish that you’d write down this moment; keep it where you can often read it. Here it is and I can vouch that through long experience I’ve found this invariably true: “Truth resisted loses its power over the mind.”

That is a known and accepted law of the mind: “Truth resisted loses its power over the mind.” The truth that once had power in your life, if you now resist it or through procrastination it is constantly put off, someday it will lose its power over your mind. You will be unaffected by it.

If God flings a truth at you and you say, “No, not now!” If God wants you to do something, and you say, “I’m not ready, not today; tomorrow maybe, Lord.”—Some day that truth will have no appeal, no power over your heart and mind, and the hardening process is taking place, just as I read to you in God’s Word.

If you keep neglecting to read the Word of God, promising you’ll read it some other day, you’ll soon lose a hunger for that Word. Ask the Lord now, today, to create a fresh hunger for His Word. Oh, my friend, read it today! Only today is yours.

You began the day without reading His Word? Well, what can you expect of a day that begins without the reading of God’s Word and prayer? God in His wisdom gave us this life one day at a time, for He knew that anyone could stand the trials of one little day, leaning on His strength. Surely we can live victoriously just one day?

If we could only do this: Take life just for the day! It’s letting life mass up on you and thinking that this thing has to be borne for many days that oppresses you and burdens you. God’s Word says, “As thy day, so shall thy strength be” (Deuteronomy 33:25).

You can have faith for almost anything if you’ll take it a day at a time. In the morning of any day, today, look up and put your hand in the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ and say, “Lord, I believe Thy Word. Thou hast promised strength for today. This day I will trust Thee; this day I will, with Your help, walk step by step in obedience. I will be kept in perfect peace this day because I keep my mind stayed on Thee, today.”

If we confront the trials and burdens thus in detail, it is easier to live victoriously; and if you should die tomorrow, you are best prepared by walking in the Spirit today, and faithfully discharging the duties of today.

Can you trust God utterly just this one day? You have to trust in the end, why not right now? He has promised to sustain you. Have you claimed some precious promise from His Word? And you are expecting the fulfillment? Perhaps putting it off till tomorrow for its fulfillment? Why don’t you accept it right now?

Hope puts the answer in tomorrow, but faith takes hold right now. Faith is a definite transaction at a definite time, and after that counts it done. Accept it now!

Take from God today what He has promised. God’s Word says, “This day has salvation come to thy house.” (Luke 19:9) Anna Johnson has written this:

One day at a time, with its failures and fears,
With its hurts and mistakes, with its weakness and tears,
With its portion of pain and its burden of care:
One day at a time we must meet and must bear.

One day at a time to be patient and strong,
To be calm under trial and sweet under wrong.
Then its toiling will pass and its sorrow shall cease,
It shall darken and die, and the night shall bring peace.

Just a day at a time; a day seems so long,
And the heart is not brave, and the soul is not strong.
So wonderful Christ, be Thou near all the way,
Give courage and patience and strength for today.

Not yesterday’s load we are called on to bear,
Nor the morrow’s uncertain and shadowy care.
Why should we look forward or back with dismay?
Our needs, as our mercies, are but for this day.

One day at a time, and the day is His day,
He hath numbered its hours, though they haste or delay.
His grace is sufficient; we walk not alone,
As the day, so the strength that He giveth His own.

—Adapted from “One Day at a Time.”

Instead of praying my own words in the closing prayer, I want to take this beautiful prayer written by Jane Bingham-Abbott. The words and the music together she wrote so beautifully.

Lord, for tomorrow and its needs I do not pray;
Keep me, my God, from stain of sin just for today.
Let me no wrong or idle word unthinking say,
Set Thou a seal upon my lips just for today.

Let me both diligently work and duly pray,
Let me be kind in work and deed just for today.
Let me in season, Lord, be grave, in season gay,
Let me be faithful to Thy grace, just for today.

In pain and sorrow’s cleansing fires briefly my stay,
Take me in Thy loving arms lest I should stray.
So for tomorrow and its needs I do not pray,
Keep me, guide me, love me, Lord, just for today.

—Adapted from "Just for Today", 1880

God bless you and keep you just for today. Take just one day at a time. Look up in His face for today, and He’s looking down at you and longing to help you! God give you grace. God bless you and keep you.

Remember, He answers prayer. He’s still on the throne and prayer changes things. God be with you, bless you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.