Psalms 90:12-17 ESV
“So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Return, O Lord! How long?
Have pity on your servants!
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.
Let your work be shown to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!”
Numbering Our Days
None of us knows if we have tomorrow. We may not even make
it through the night. We may live to be 70 years old or older, or we may die
very young. The number of our days on this earth is not guaranteed us. So, we
should not take for granted the time that we have been given.
Thus, we need the Lord to teach us to “number our days,” to
take to heart the brevity of life, the uncertainty of how much time we have
been given, and the consequences of a life not well spent, and then to consider
how best we should be spending the time that we have been given on this earth.
Far too many people, even many who claim to be Christians,
are wasting their lives away on frivolity, entertainment, jokes, games, movies,
partying, play time, laziness, senselessness, and sinful addictions
(practices). Not all of these are bad, but if not sinful, they can just be a
waste of time.
So, if we are numbering our days, we are giving serious and
careful consideration to how we are spending our days, and if what we are doing
is worthwhile, or if what we are doing is sinful and/or wasteful of the precious
time God has given to us to live our lives for his glory and praise.
Thus, the bottom line here, I believe, in numbering our days,
is to ask ourselves if our lives are fully surrendered to the Lord. Is he
owner-master of our lives? Is he the one “calling the shots,” or are we still
the ones determining our own steps and going our own way?
A Heart of Wisdom
So, the object of us “numbering our days” is that we may get
a heart of wisdom. So, how does this happen? It can only happen if we take the
exercise seriously and if, in the process, we allow the Holy Spirit to convict
our hearts of any sinful practices or wasteful time.
And, then once he has pointed out to us the ways in which we
are sinning against him, and where we are wasting away precious time, then we
need to act on what he has shown us. We need to forsake all sinful practices,
and we must stop being wasteful of the time we have been given on this earth.
Now, I am not saying that we can’t ever relax, or have fun,
or play games, or watch something decent. But I am saying what the Word of God
says, and that is that Jesus needs to be Lord of our lives, and our lives need
to be surrendered to him, and he should be the one directing our steps.
We need to take into serious consideration that our lives,
as believers in Jesus, are no longer our own. We were bought back for God with
Jesus’ blood shed on that cross for our sins so that we would now honor God
with our lives and live for him and not for ourselves.
And we need to walk (conduct our lives) in the wisdom of God
and not in the wisdom of this sinful world or of our sinful flesh. Jesus and
his Word should be our road map for the way we live our lives and for what we
do with our time, and our road map should not be determined by the flesh of
man.
His Steadfast Love
If we are not among those who believe in Jesus Christ with
God-given faith, and/or if our faith in Jesus Christ was of our flesh and not
of the Spirit of God, and thus it did not bear the fruit of righteousness,
and/or if we believed in Jesus Christ with genuine faith, but we have since
wandered from that pure faith, God’s love and grace are available to us to
restore us.
But God’s love and grace are not free license to us to
deliberately continue living in habitual sin. God’s love and grace deliver us
out of our slavery to sin and they put sin to death in our lives so that we can
now be slaves to God and to his righteousness, for his glory and praise.
Thus, if we deliberately continue living in habitual sin
against God, his love and grace do not apply to our lives. And I am not saying
that there can’t ever be a time in our Christian lives where we wander and need
to be brought back to the Lord, but that the Scriptures are quite definite on
the fact that those who live according to the flesh will die in their sins.
Thus, the Scriptures teach that the truth that is in Christ
Jesus is that we must forsake (put off) our old lives of living to sin and
self, and we must be transformed in heart and mind of the Spirit of God, and we
must now walk (in conduct) according to the Spirit, and not according to the
flesh if we want salvation from our sins and eternal life with God.
For, God’s grace, which brings salvation, trains us to say
“NO!” to ungodliness and fleshly lusts and to live self-controlled, upright,
and godly lives while we wait for our Lord’s soon return. And His grace frees
us from our slavery to sin and it empowers us to walk in obedience to our Lord.
The Great Redeemer
Lyrics by Francis Foster, 1915
Music by Samuel W. Beazley, 1915
How I love the great Redeemer
Who is doing so much for me;
With what joy I tell the story
Of the love that makes men free.
Till my earthly life is ended,
I will send songs above,
Then beside the crystal sea
More and more my soul shall be
Praising Jesus and His love.
He has purchased my redemption,
Rolled my burden of sin away,
And is walking on beside me,
Growing dearer day by day.
That is why I sing His praises,
That is why joy is mine,
That is why forevermore
On the everlasting shore
I shall sing of love divine.
Glory be to Him forever!
Endless praises to Christ the Lamb!
He has filled my life with sunshine,
He has made me what I am.
Oh, that everyone would know Him,
Oh, that all would adore!
Oh, that all would trust the love
Of the mighty Friend above
And be His forevermore.
He is everything to me, to me,
He is everything to me,
And everything shall always be;
I will never cease to raise
A song of gladness in His praise;
Here, and in the world above,
My soul shall sing of saving love;
Life and light and joy is He,
The precious Friend who died for me.
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