By Jim Golden

Time travel is a subject that has fascinated mankind for quite sometime.  It is the theme of many sci-fi movies as well as many books. Even Christian children's animated stories use it as a means to spark interest in Biblical history.  In a sense all Christians should be time travelers.

In 1957 I asked Jesus to be my Savior.  In 1972, I had a powerful baptism in the Holy Spirit.  As a result a whole new world of Christian experience opened up to me. God had given me a measure of power that this orthodox Baptist boy didn't know existed. In the first year after this baptism, the Lord used me to heal a blind lady, and to raise a man from the dead that had been run over by a truck  

I remember one time when a Christian brother got hurt at work, resulting in a nasty gash to his head.  I prayed for him and the wound closed up instantly.  God had given me a childlike faith that simply took him at his word. A devotion to Him and intimacy within me also accompanied this new baptism.

It wasn't long however, before the knowledge I gained from reading the Word of God turned into spiritual pride and the miracles and healings began to be few and far between.  I can still remember driving around the neighborhood in a friend's Volkswagen one day with tears in my eyes. Crying out to God I said, "Father all I want to do is to heal and deliver people."  I was so frustrated.  It seemed the harder I prayed the less happened.  Over the next 30 years things did not change.  I had traded simple devotion and intimacy with God for the honor and acceptance of man.  I sought for position in the Church and man's approval instead of God's.

My Christian life had become a roller coaster ride that even dwarfed the ups and downs of my life before Christ.  Fortunately, God's mercy and patience won the battle. Over and over again He would remind me that apart from him I could do nothing.  Over the years he made certain verses stick in my heart.  One in particular has intrigued me the most.  "Christ was crucified before the foundations of the world, but was manifested at just the right time." Another verse was, "All of our days were written in His book before there ever was one."  As I began to think about these Scriptures and the seemingly impotent state of the Church. I would question God. Why Lord, can't we do the "greater works" that Jesus spoke about? After many years God has put the pieces of this puzzle together for me.

The history of the Church is replete with accounts of revival, but one that started in 1994 had as its main theme, intimacy with God and the love of the Father.  Little by little God brought these verses back to me and added new ones that gave me a glimpse into His modus operendi.  One such verse was, "On the seventh day God ceased from all his works".  Somehow I thought that I could get God to start working again when I prayed, but alas, bareness was my answer.  Then, in his mercy, He reminded me that Jesus only did what he saw the Father do.  Things began to make sense.

What I am about to say may challenge your theology, but at least consider it.  The Holy Spirit told me that all my efforts, to this point, were to try and get God to do something that He had already done before the foundations of the world.  He was telling me that every single miracle that I had seen and that I would ever see, He had already done before the world began and from time to time I had walked into "just the right time."  

Soon my perspective began to change.  I began to see that we were to walk in the good works that God had "beforehand" prepared.  God had ceased from all his labors and Jesus had agreed with His Heavenly Father through His proclamation on the Cross, "It is finished."  It takes two things to see an, "It is. finished" happen.  First, through faith, we see that God has completed all His works.  Secondly, as He shows us we declare His finished glorious work! Then the bridge across time is spanned and — bingo, it is done and God receives the glory due His name! 

Somehow, I had thought that God would one day say, "Oops, I forgot that one", and would begin to labor some more. However, I realized that God never forgets to do anything and my thoughts were an impeachment of his absolute perfection. Everyday we run into situations that just might be a divine appointment.  Take a moment and ask Him if this is the time to see His finished work manifested.  Then do whatever He tells you.

I have begun doing what Peter did when he raised Dorcas from the dead.  He first knelt down and prayed.  I believe he was seeking that place of intimacy with God that would allow him to see what God had already done, and when he saw it, he proclaimed it.

Intimacy with God is what Jesus came to restore in us and everything that we do should be the result of that intimacy.  It really relieves me from the pressure to perform.  It turns a miracle into the glorious proclamation of what God did.  It allows us to travel back through time in the Spirit and see what God did so many centuries ago.  It does not depend on me to pray well enough nor does it give me an opportunity to become puffed up with my spiritual prowess.  I believe the Church is at the threshold of a new day, which is really a very old day, a day when God was working before the foundations of the world.

How about it? Do you want to take a course in time travel? It is a journey of intimacy into the arms of a God who holds time in his hand like a book. He already knows the end from the beginning and has written all the days of mankind into His book before there ever was one

 

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