ODJ: if tomorrow never comes
November 11, 2010
What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that” (v.15).
READ: James 4:13-17
A heartbreaking story on the cover of the newspaper had everyone talking. A groom was found dead hours after his wedding dinner. One of his friends said: “He was a very cheerful person and had just gotten married. Nobody could believe he was dead just hours after celebrating his wedding.”
Life is truly uncertain. Everyone is just a heartbeat away from eternity. First Chronicles 29:15 states: “Our days on earth are like a passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace.” It usually takes sad news, however, to drive home the reality of our frailty.
James 4:13 warns against speaking arrogantly about our future. We’re too limited to even understand what lies ahead, let alone take charge of it. We’re not the master of our own destiny, for we don’t even know what tomorrow will bring (v.14). We’re like a mist. Our lives are so short—here today, gone tomorrow.
How should we live in light of these truths? We should learn to embrace God’s plan for us (v.15) and do all the good we can (v.17).
We embrace God’s plan by acknowledging His sovereign rule over us. We say, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that” (v.15). We don’t make plans and then simply ask God to bless them. Instead, we should include God in every decision because He is over all of life.
Elisabeth Elliot observed, “God is God. Because He is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience. I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will, a will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to.”
Next, we should do the good we can. As God’s Word has instructed us in good works, we must be faithful in doing them. That makes for a God-honoring today and tomorrow. —Poh Fang Chia
What does your planning say about you? Are you self-confident or God-reliant? How do your plans acknowledge God’s plan?
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Man born of a woman like Job said is full of trouble and of a few days, meaning that our lives here on earth is as brief as a mist and we can be saved not just the trouble of today but that of eternal damnation only when we sincerely give our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ, live our everyday for Him with the help of His Spirit- the Holy Spirit who strengthens and guides us.