I have noticed a strange trend as of late; people continually going about their daily lives as if there is always going to be a tomorrow. The Word of God describes this way of life, how people would make plans for tomorrow—as if they would actually see tomorrow. Never once do they stop and ask themselves: Will tomorrow be there? Of course in the recesses of our minds, we already know tomorrow never does come, it’s always today, it is always right now. We look at the past as something that happened a long time ago and yet most of the time, it was simply minutes ago.
This oddity is called “time” and each of us must deal with it constantly. Even as I write this article, I am talking about it and dealing with it, as you are. The majority of people feel they must be “doing something” to fill their time. Have you ever noticed that people do not want to deal with their eventual demise: death. I must surmise, that this is a difficult thing for people, because it is a the ultimate cessation of “being.” People fear this as they look in the coffin and notice there is no breathing, no dreams—nothing. This person can no longer do anything. For that person, everything has stopped. His or her life has come to an end and for most, there is no more tomorrow.
How odd is it? That everyone is able to tell time, they are always watching their watches and clocks and they see the big hand go past the hour mark. Yet the clock for the person in the coffin, has stopped all together. For that person, time has stopped..forever. Or has it?
For those of us who are still walking around and breathing, that is way too strange to think about; the possibility of everything coming to such an extreme halt. This is because we live in a linear world. Everything has a beginning and an end. Check your ruler if you disagree. Is it strange for us to live in a world of beginnings and endings and then become bewildered by death, an end to this life? Or is it because we are not able to see eternity, thus we fear it does not exist. In that frame of thinking, it would indeed be an end to everything. Thinking in that manner, what use would there be for living?
In the book of Genesis, we read how God created everything—yet there is no mention that HE created time. Yet time is in existence; inherently we know time exists. We live out each day thinking we will have a tomorrow, that when it comes it will be today (as in right now). Still as yet, we see many young people’s lives stop, we see old people’s lives stop, we see babies lives stop. So the question then comes: Has time stopped for them or not? This speculation is what troubles our minds, plagues us at every step of this life, every day. Or does the word “caution” not come to mind. We must be careful we do not harm ourselves and thus end our state of being.
It is odd how we can stop a watch or clock from working and time continues on, right? Odd to our minds, how time continues no matter what. It never pauses or takes a breather. And we then see how our days are numbered for us and there is nothing we can do about it. Obviously, time is not within our grasp; we are not able to change it or subjugate it in any way. Having said that, time will end for you and me one day, and there is nothing we can do to stop that. Thus…life becomes precious and with great meaning. We wonder about people that live life like hell, right? If you take a moment and think about this, what is life supposed to be about?
We can question so many things, what is life all about, why were we chosen to be here, what am I and does it really matter to anyone? Surprisingly, this mountain of questions arise and the only answers are found in the Word of God—the Bible. So why do so few read the Word of God, why do so many think it is worthless and not relevant to today?
James 4:13-15 “Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: 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. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.”
Joshua 24:14-15: “Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
So there we have it. Two verses from the Word of God and we have our questions…answered. The reason we are here and what we are suppose to be doing while we are here. If we realize the Word is absolute Truth, then we see what we are to be while we are here. It is then obvious what will happen if we choose to go another way, our life as a vapor ends. The question is, what will there be after we are no longer here? This is also answered in the Holy Word of God.
Romans 6:20-23: “For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Here is the absolute end to all the questions we could have about this life, not to sin, because sin brings death. So now the question is, how deep a death would that be? If God’s gift to us (Jesus Christ) is eternal life, then the opposite is eternal death. It is then up to you and me to make sure that our time as a vapor is spent glorifying Jesus Christ.
How odd is it that we have been given this simple choice to make for just ourselves? It is then simple to understand, that we have a choice of living a sin-filled life or a God-filled life. One spells eternal death and the other eternal life, and the point is…which one do YOU want?
According to what we see going on around us today, what would your estimation be? Is the world correct about this life or not? If you live your life according to how the world is living, what is your eternal destination? You see, if you can understand what the eternal destination is all about, then you will understand how you should be living today, because that is all we have…today.
Now that we have answered the question of today, as verses tomorrow, what do you plan on doing with your time here? And again, we have answered the question dealing with time. If we realize our time here is linear, then we know there is an end to this life. So then the question remains, is there or is there not an eternal life?
Obviously and according to the Romans 6, God has made an eternal life to be lived. And according to that verse, we will either live that eternal life is hell or in heaven. We can see there is a choice to be made and that choice must be made while we are living this life here on earth. This is the ONLY point in our life where we can change where we will be…tomorrow!
Is it enough to note, tomorrow may never get here for you or me, in the sense that we know of it today. We then see “living life like hell” will get you there for sure, it makes sense to change right now to prepare for where we want to be tomorrow. If memory still serves me well, there are sayings about this very thing:
“Don’t put off till tomorrow, what needs to be done today.” It’s called procrastination, it is the greatest defeat in our minds and yet, it can spell disaster for tomorrow and that could be on a biblical scale. You have been given a mind for a reason, it is always wise to use it for all the best of reasons. It is already apparent that the majority of the world has chosen not to do so!