At my current age, my life expectancy from the Social Security life expectancy calculator is 85.5 years. For my wife, at her current age, it is 86.1 years. If she lives to be my current age, her life expectancy will change to 88.0 years. I teasingly say to Debbie that we men are just overworked. I then get the “look,” and she replies with, “Yeah, right.” She knows I’m joking, and I know she isn’t. That makes it even funnier, and we both have to laugh.

Whether any of us live to be 80, 90, 100 or 100+ years of age, life really is short. It doesn’t seem that way when you’re young, but believe me, the older you get, the faster the train moves. We older folks can vouch for that.

Think about those things in your life you said you would do, but time ran out. As Christians, the Lord lays certain callings upon our heart. Some folks jump right in and get to the task, while others procrastinate.

Since I was a very young boy I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but I never followed through with it until seven years ago. I had never written anything before, but decided to write an article and send it in to Rapture Ready in hopes Todd would post it. I’m still sending in articles today, as the Holy Spirit leads me.

My point is, maybe the Lord is calling you for a specific task that you still haven’t even started. Think about this. If you are going on a 100 mile trek on foot, it will never be accomplished until you take the first step. We can think about it, pray about it, and plan it, but until we take the first step, we will never do it. Take the first step.

Many in life attempt to put off making any decision about Jesus Christ. They avoid the fact that they need to be born again. All need to come to Jesus for forgiveness of sins and to receive eternal life by placing our life in His hands through faith. My question is what is going on in their minds? I suspect they are thinking; “I have plenty of time, or I’m young and I’ll take care of that later.” Unfortunately, “later” never comes for many people.

It’s very hard to “wrap our minds” around the thought of eternity since eternity never ends. We have an ending. It is called death, as far as our body is concerned. Most don’t realize though the soul lives for eternity. It never dies. Once our body dies, we will either be in Heaven with the Lord if we are a Christian, or we will be in hell without Him if we are not a Christian.

By the way, all mankind will receive a resurrected body, the saved (1 Corinthians 15) as well as the lost (Matthew 10:28; 25:46; Luke 16:19-31).

Have you ever known someone who can talk incessantly? I mean they don’t even stop for a breath and go on and on and on. You keep looking for a pause in the one-sided conversation so you can move on, but it never comes. I think about eternity a lot during those times.

Have you ever thought about the lifespan of a flea? The adult flea only lives 2-3 months. An ant is around 90 days, except the Harvester ant, and it lives from 2-6 months. A domestic cat’s lifespan is 12-15 years. While a dog’s lifespan is 10-13 years. (Keep in mind these are averages.) An elephant may live 60-70 years. A pet turtle may live 10-80 years and larger species 100 years. According to Guinness, sea turtles have the longest lifespan of 152 years. Did you know that the Alaska red cedar tree can live up to 3,500 years?

Again, what is the point? Nothing on earth lives for an eternity, except the soul of man, either in Heaven or hell. As far as our body is concerned, most of us will outlive the flea and none of us will outlive the Alaska red cedar tree, but when it concerns our soul, there is no end to our life.

Many believe that when our body dies we are no more. There is just nothingness. That is not what God tells us in His Word. The Bible is very clear that once we die, after that is the judgment.

“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:” (Hebrews 9:27)

Eventually, at some point in our life, we all need to consider the future, the eternal future. To decide against Christ will result in eternity in hell. To decide to remain neutral has the same result. There must be an actual act of genuine faith by each of us placed in the person of Jesus Christ to inherent eternal life. Otherwise, there is nothing but eternal death that awaits us.

At any time, the door will be shut and locked, the lights turned out, and God will say to the Son, “It’s time.” For many, “time” will have run out. Don’t be frivolous with the short life you have been given upon this earth.

Grant Phillips

Email: grantphillips@windstream.net

Pre-Rapture Commentary: http://grant-phillips.blogspot.com

Rapture Ready: https://www.raptureready.com/featured/phillips/phillips.html

I was driving home this morning and noticed how the weeds had taken over farmland nearby that used to grow corn. Once the corn was harvested a cover crop was sown to keep the ground fertile. Unfortunately, the owners sold the farm and no longer are growing any corn. Some of the farmland has been set aside for a few horses. Some is being divided into plots for a sub-division, and this one particular lot I have mentioned is sitting idle, at least for now. Instead of the beautiful land we used to see when we drove by, it is now covered in weeds as tall as I am.

This got me to thinking about our spiritual lives as Christians. I’ll come back to that, but first of all let’s consider some other examples.

My Mother-in-law’s car sits idle most of the time in her carport. I mentioned to her the other day that it really should be driven at least once a week to keep all the moving parts working as they should.

Have you ever noticed that when we don’t exercise, regardless of our age, our body gets weaker and pudgy? Since our body wears down with age anyway, it gets even more critical to exercise it to slow down the “blessings” of the aging process. My guess is that most of us do not feel, in our minds, our actual age. In my mind, I feel much younger than my age, but my body has a way of reminding me that I’m not a young buck anymore. Can I get an “Amen” here?

Children aren’t as physically active as we were when we were youngsters, but I’ve told my wife, on one of those few occasions you spot one outside playing, “We used to be active like that. What happened?” I used to run and jump over fences just for the pure joy of it. Now, I don’t want to walk too far from the house, since I’m concerned about getting back.

Sin brought corruption into this world. When God created the world, everything was perfect. How do I know, since I wasn’t here at the time? He said so. (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 3) Can you really think of anything, since sin entered the world that does not wear down? It is also true that many things in our world deteriorate even more rapidly if left idle.

Our bodies need to be maintained (food, drink, exercise) to keep working properly, but even then aging takes its toll. Our spirit is much different. Unlike the body, it is eternal. It is not aging, but it still needs to be maintained (food, drink, exercise).

Far more often than not, most Christians are not maintaining their spirit. With most Christians it (their spirit) sits idle, and idleness reaps nothing but corruption. In using the word “corruption” for this article, I am not saying they are “sleazy” people, as this word would normally be defined.

I am saying that they are becoming weak, as in a body that is not maintained. Living in this sin-bloated world, we must be strong against Satan’s assaults. When bad things happen, and they will, we must have the spiritual muscle to withstand. However, if we don’t feed our spirit with the Word of God (Bible) and spend time in prayer (fellowship with God), we’re going to have a much more difficult time living in this world than a Christian who is growing spiritually in the Lord.

I am saying that they are becoming weed-infested, as a piece of ground that is not maintained. If we allow our spiritual lives to sit idle as the farmland I mentioned in the opening paragraph, we won’t know what to believe. We will be so confused; we’ll never be at peace with Truth. Our faith will be weak. We will be so full of “weedy” questions; we’ll never be truly content, relaxing in God’s rest. We are in God’s rest if we are a Christian, but are we relaxing in it, enjoying God’s grace?

“Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” (Hebrews 4:1)

Many Christians are really confused about the security of their salvation. One day they think they’re saved. The next day they aren’t so sure. It’s because they have been idle and their souls have become corrupted with the weeds of false gospel. Their ground needs to be cleared and plowed so the cover crop can be sown.

Our God wants a close relationship with us by our mutual fellowship with Him. He wants us to be strong in faith and fertile in our life, but if our spiritual life sits idle, we are not going to grow spiritually. We will always be fighting against the current. Consider the following Scriptures.

“Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep; and an idle soul shall suffer hunger.” (Proverbs 19:15)

Slothfulness in this verse actually means “lazy.” If we are idle, we are lazy and starving our spiritual self.

“By much slothfulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through.” (Ecclesiastes 10:18)

As with anything, idleness brings nothing but corruption. The house just falls down around our ears while we stand and watch.

“Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49)

Jesus said that in the last days the world would become as it was in the days of Noah and Lot. Notice that this Scripture says that Sodom had an “abundance of idleness.” Maybe that’s one of the major problems with the Church today. We have “an abundance of idleness” and we are reaping corruption.

Grant Phillips

Email: grantphillips@windstream.net

Pre-Rapture Commentary: http://grant-phillips.blogspot.com

Rapture Ready: https://www.raptureready.com/featured/phillips/phillips.html