Dear Friends,

Do you have the habit of putting things off? My grandmother used to say to me when I was a boy, “Procrastination, thy name is John!” Well, today’s devotional speaks to one issue we must not put off. God bless you.

Because of Calvary,

John Janney

• II Corinthians 6:2

  2 Corinthians 6:2    English Standard Version (ESV)
  2 For he says,  “In a favorable time I listened to you,
  and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”
  Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

II Corinthians 6:2

“I remember a man of God, who was talking with a young lady to whom he had spoken many times about her soul. At last he said to her, ‘Well, Hannah, you do intend to come to Christ one day?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ she replied, ‘I do intend.’ ‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘will you give me a date when you will come to Christ? You are twenty now, will you come to the Lord Jesus Christ when you are thirty? Will you put that down as a definite promise?’ The young lady answered, ‘Well, sir, I should not like to promise that, because I might be dead before I was thirty. Ten years is a long time, and I might be dead and gone before that time, I hope I shall know the Lord before that.’ ‘Well, Hannah,’ the good man said, ‘we will say nine years, then; that is to be the time that you fix when you will yield to the mercy of God.’ ‘Well, sir,’ she said, ‘I hope it will be before then.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘the bargain is made; you will have to run risks for nine years, you know. You make the bargain that you will come to Christ in nine years’ time; let it stand so, and you must run the risk.’ ‘Oh, sir!’ she exclaimed, ‘it would be an awful thing, a dreadful thing, for me to say that I would wait nine years, because I might be lost in that time.’ The friend then said, ‘Well, suppose we say that you will serve the Lord in twelve months’ time; will you just take this year, and spend it in the service of Satan, and then, when you have enjoyed yourself that way, give your heart to Christ?” Somehow, the young woman felt that it was a long time, and a very dangerous time, so she answered, ‘I should not like to be hung over an awful chasm, and for somebody to say, “I will pull you up at the end of a year, and set your feet on a rock.”’ No, she could not bear that thought; and as her minister pressed her to set a time, and brought it down by little and little, at last she said, ‘Oh, sir, it had better be tonight; it had better be tonight! Pray to God that I may now give my heart to the Lord Jesus Christ, for it is such a dreadful thing to be without a Savior. I would have Christ as mine this very night.’”

[Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLIII, (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1897), p. 66]