Faith For The Present Moment

March 1, 2025 by M. Stephanie Zeller

“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24, ESV)

There is much to be said of the beauty of the present moment. The present moment is where God lives, for He is the God of the “I AM.” If we desire to interact with God, we must do so in the now. When we speak, we speak in the now. When we think, we think in the now. When we love, we love in the now. When our hearts overflow with gratitude, our hearts do so in the now.

The now is a multi-dimensional action point. The now includes what I think and what I decide not to think. It includes what I do and what I decide not to do. The now even includes my interaction with the Holy Spirit. Scripture teaches that the fruits of the Holy Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23, ESV), and that the Holy Spirit dwells within the spirit of each born again believer. (2 Timothy 1:14, ESV) The Holy Spirit produces this bountiful harvest of fruit as we allow the Holy Spirit’s voice to penetrate our human spirit. Of necessity, this process of yielding to the Holy Spirit can only occur in the now. As we yield in the now, we shape and direct our future.

Clearly the present is our action point for a wonderful future, but first we must free our now from the bondage of sin consciousness. Sin consciousness takes many forms. It may involve guilt or shame over prior actions that caused pain to others or remorse over actions that caused pain to ourselves. Sin consciousness may involve major moral failures or a simple lack of restraint at the monthly church fellowship meal. In either instance, sin consciousness is the rehearsing of our prior actions against a backdrop of how we would have preferred a matter to have been. It is this rehearsing that interferes with our present moment. It drowns out all the wonderful possibilities of the present moment.

In actuality, sin consciousness is based on our desire to see ourselves as perfect so that we can approve of ourselves. To be sin conscious is to be self-focused. Ultimately, sin consciousness is a repudiation of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. We are not perfect and will never be perfect in our flesh. The good news is that only one man needed to be perfect and that was Jesus who was God in the flesh. Jesus took all of our sins and imperfections upon Himself—not just the sins we had already committed when we first believed in Him and made Him our Lord, but also the sins we have committed since that time and those we will continue to commit in the future. Jesus suffered the punishment for all those sins so that we can receive His righteousness. He did it “once for all,” (Hebrews 9:12, ESV) and “it is finished.” (John 19:30, ESV)

Freedom for the present moment means we are fully persuaded that Jesus has paid the full price for all sin and that our righteousness comes from His shed blood. Because our righteousness flows from our relationship with Jesus, we have been set free from the law of sin and death. “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2, ESV) Each time that we rehearse past failures in our minds, we are subjecting ourselves again to the bondage of the law of sin and death—a bondage that no longer applies to us. “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15, ESV) As sons of God, let us rejoice in the freedom that Jesus has provided. The Spirit of Life lives in us. We are free indeed.

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Where scripture translations neglect to capitalize pronoun references to God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit, we have taken the liberty to do so.