James 4:13-16 – Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
THEME OF THE DAY: TODAY MAY BE THE DAY. I have been reading a book titled, The Last Enemy by Michael Wittmer. It isn’t very long but is sure is a thought-provoker. No, it isn’t a war novel or some non-fiction history book about soldiers and battle. Oh, it is about an enemy and battle. And it does stimulate thinking, even a re-thinking about how one is living life. Allow me to share what I mean. He titles chapter one “Shock”. That alone is a quick indicator of the impact this book may have on a person open to its instruction. What we will read next is the first two paragraphs of chapter one.
“You are going to die. Take a moment to let that sink in. You are going to die. One morning the sun will rise and you won’t see it. Birds will greet the dawn and you won’t hear them. Friends and family will gather to celebrate your life, and after you’re buried they’ll return to church for ham and scalloped potatoes. Soon your job and favorite chair and spot on the team will be filled by someone else. The rest of the world may pause to remember. It will give you a moment of silence if you were rich or well known, but then it will carry on as it did before you arrived. There is no remembrance of men of old said Solomon and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow (Ecclesiastes 1:11). You are going to die. What a crushing, desperate thought. But unless you swallow hard and embrace it, you are not prepared to live.”
Wittmer got my attention. I hope he did yours. And I hope I do too as we unfold today’s nugget. Do we realize that today may very well be our last day on earth? Today, yes, today, may be the appointed day of our death and our face-to-face meeting with our Lord Jesus. It is an appointment we cannot reschedule, cancel, or miss. The wise pundit King Solomon wrote, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2). And to put a New Testament bookend with Solomon’s Old Testament one, the writer of Hebrews wrote, “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).
For the Christian who has experienced victory over death by union with the Resurrected Christ, death is no longer a conquering enemy, but it does serve as a strong motivator for living; living for what matters most. The Bible teaches that Christians are pilgrims on a journey home; home being heaven. Pilgrims never are comfortable in their present land. They long for their real land. God’s Word also calls us strangers, exiles, and citizens of another country (Hebrews 11:13-16). I lived in Italy the first three years I was in the Navy. It wasn’t my home. I was never fully comfortable there. And Christians are not to be comfortable in this world. And the way to keep ourselves from being attached to this place that isn’t our home is to remember the certainty of our death and then live for what really matters.
Friends, the certainty of death, but uncertainty of the time of our death should make us live each day to the fullest for Him who conquered death – the Lord Jesus. That means parent our children for Christ modeling Christ before them; make our marriages a reflection of Christ and His love for His church; strive to have our homes a “little church” where Christ is daily upheld, His Word shared, and prayer perfuming every room; invest quality time serving in our churches by weekly faithful attendance to her ministries, giving sacrificially of our money, time, and talents; love people in Jesus’ name; and make seeking Christ our number one daily pursuit. I mean, after all, today may be the very day we literally meet Him. Could there be no greater joy than to be living for Him when death comes? Today may be that day. Let that motivate us to live consumed with Christ and His interests that we welcome that day whenever it is.
PRAYER: “Father, help me to number my days that I may really believe the fleeting nature of life”
QUOTE: “Live today as if it were your last day for it may very well be.”