When I was young I loved to watch Figure 8 racing on Wide World of Sports every Saturday. If you have never heard of this type of racing, it is a mixture of NASCAR and Demolition Derby. The cars race on a track that is, of course, in the figure of the number eight.
If the driver of a car gets the timing right they will never be hit and have a great probability to win the race. But if he does not time it right he will be T-boned by another driver where the track intersects at the middle of the eight. However, another driver and many fans may say that perfect timing is when you get to hit someone in another car slowing them down so they are unable to either finish or win the race.
Personally, not getting hit seems the wisest of the two possibilities. Perfect timing in any area of life allows for reduction of stress and more efficient completion of an activity or chore.
In Scripture, God is always on time, still is today, and will be tomorrow. In three different time periods God has been and will be perfect in His timing. That is what we will see from only three passages from the Bible.
The first time period is the birth of Jesus Christ upon the earth. In Galatians 4:4-5 Paul teaches the church of his day and ours that God’s timing is the beauty of perfection. “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”
What Paul the apostle and author of this letter is telling his readers and us is that at just the right time is history God shows up in the person of Jesus Christ. And He came to deliver mankind out of sin and misery. He did not come too early or too late but at just the right time!
God knew from before the earth was ever created that Jesus would come humbly on the world scene in the stable and be born to a couple of teenagers who were of no worldly account. He did this exactly as He had planned in eternity past and as He proved all of this true throughout the Old Testament. And at just the right time Jesus comes to fulfill all of the promises that God made to Israel from Genesis to Malachi.
The second time period where God shows His perfect timing is the crucifixion of His beloved Son upon a cruel cross. Sin has devastating effects and nothing shows it more grotesquely than that of a Roman crucifixion.
Acts 2:22-24 Peter the apostle describes the perfection of timing according to God’s standards and time-table. “Men of Israel, heart these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know – this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.”
Jesus’ death was pre-planned by God to take place a just the right time in history for the good of the world. The Father sent the Son into the world because of His love for the people of the world because He knew that they could not and would not pay the penalty for their own sins. Sin is incurable apart from Jesus and the perfect remedy for the fatal disease of sin is the person of Jesus being born at the perfect time in history and then dying at the perfect time in history.
Finally, the future time is planned perfect in God’s ultimate wisdom and foresight. “The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed” (2 Peter 3:9-10).
The reason, according to these verses, that Jesus has not come back yet is that the time is not quite right. When the perfect time arises God the Father will send the Son to the earth a second time to claim the church. Not everyone that is to become a follower of Jesus or Christian has become one yet. God is so very patient with humankind. He still desires for people to come and believe in His Son and His death, burial, resurrection, ascension and eventual return.
Now it’s in your ball court and the timing is perfect. It is the perfect time for you to believe in Jesus and receive Him as your Savior and King. Do it today for there is no time like the present and its perfect timing.