James 4:14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
Psalms 39:4 Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is: that I may know how frail I am. 5 Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah. 6 Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them. 7 And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee. 8 Deliver me from all my transgressions: make me not the reproach of the foolish.
When we read passages such as these, written thousands of years apart, we know Jesus is telling us something. This is the greatest question: what is your life? It’s serious and sobering. As we get older we think more about it. We should look at each day as our last and make it count. Ask the Lord to help you not commit the sin of presumption in thinking you have many more days to go. The other thing is wishing your life away. Do you do that?
A preacher said one time “people spend their lives filling each day with something to do so the time will pass. They wake up one day and wonder where the time has gone.” Do you wake up on a rainy day and decide you’ll just do nothing because it’s raining? We should run out in the rain and throw up our hands and say “thank you, God, for another day!” If it’s snowing run out and build a snowman and be thankful for the day. As children we wished Christmas would hurry up and get here. Then by afternoon on Christmas day there would be a void. Adults do the same wishing November and December would just get over with. To others, these days are very depressing. We should feel Christmas and Easter all year long.
How do we measure our life? In Psalms 90:12 Moses wrote teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. That’s many, many years before David would write Psalms 39. So, how do you measure the value of a single day? It could be the coming of the Lord. We know that day is coming soon. Many of our church members have gone on. Why do we think it won’t be us? When we realize we do have an end, it’s easy to measure our days.
David knew the Lord and he valued his days. Even though God made him King of Israel and showed him grace and mercy in forgiving him and restoring the joy of his salvation, he still knew an end would come. Value days now because it is up to God to choose the ending. It could be today. It really could. We see commercials of those pitiful sick children at St. Jude’s and think that would never be my child. It may not be your child who gets cancer but kids die in accidents all the time. People in seemingly good shape die of strokes and heart attacks. You can have it all good inside but still die. Life is a vapor–here now and gone in a second. Once a person dies you don’t come back.
David asked to understand his end and to measure his days. When you make coffee you measure it out because that affects the strength of the coffee. What’s the content of your life? Is prayer just a ritual? We give God so little time. David took heed of his ways. You may say that you kept “this many” commandments but how many didn’t you keep? We need God every day. If you have him as Savior it’s a slap in his face to waste a day giving him no thanks. When our end comes we want to hear “well done thou good and faithful servant.” Guess what? To hear that we have to do well! We have to be faithful!
The value of your moments are there. It’s in the people you can witness to. It’s in the opportunity to stop and smell the roses–thank God for your blessings. We are blessed. You may feel bad, but someone somewhere feels much worse than you. Some are homeless or have a home getting ready to fall down. There will be good and bad because the devil exists and because you’re in this flesh. There’ll be lean times and good times. For better or worse could be worse. Thank God for what you have. He will provide later, but he’s providing now.
Yesterday has passed. Tomorrow is not here. All you have is today. What are you going to do with it?
Adwolfe Freewill Baptist Church 