What is Your Life?

“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. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” (James 4:13-17 ESV)

I woke this morning with a secular song playing in my mind. It is called, “Yesterday,” by Paul McCartney (of The Beatles) and by George Martin. And it is a song of lost love. For the love of the singer’s life suddenly walked out on him without any explanation. And so he didn’t know what to think, and he wondered, perhaps, if he had said something wrong. And so the singer is mourning over this lost “love” and the happiness he felt when she was with him, so he is longing for yesterday when he thought things were better.

So the song is basically about romance gone bad, for it is about falling in love and then someone (one partner) falling out of love, which is not biblical love, but is human love which is based in our emotions, and which can fluctuate depending upon our circumstances. But those feelings that people have when they “fall in love” give them an illusion that all their troubles have disappeared from their lives, which is one of the reasons people commit adultery and forsake their spouses, for they seek after that illusion.

But the “illusion” doesn’t make people’s troubles disappear. It just masks them for a time, and it deceives them into thinking that everything is alright when it isn’t at all. So they hold on to what they thought brought them happiness, even if it is just in a dream, but then they escape the reality of their real life which they do not want to deal with. And this is where many addicts live, in this state of euphoria because it helps them “feel good”, but it is an unhealthy avoidance of the reality of their life situations.

And I guess the point of this, in relation to the Scripture, could be that none of us knows what tomorrow is going to bring into our lives. It was nine years ago today that my youngest sister died at age 61, and I am most certain that was not in her plans for the day. None of us can assume that we have tomorrow, and so we should live each day as though it is our last. But we need to live in the reality of today and not in a dream world, and not holding on to our past lives or experiences, and not in denial of reality, either.

In the song the song writer stated that yesterday came suddenly and unexpectedly, but so can tomorrow. We should never assume that what we have today won’t be gone tomorrow. Yes, we should make plans for today and for tomorrow, but always with the understanding that those plans could suddenly change. Someone could die. A spouse could desert. A hurricane or a tornado could suddenly wipe out your “dream home.” And we need to be spiritually prepared for today and tomorrow, too.

For many people who are walking in sin, many of them professers of faith in Jesus Christ, are not spiritually prepared for the return of the Lord. So they are continuing in deliberate and habitual sin against the Lord, doing whatever it is they want to do, without regard for what the Scriptures teach us. And many of them are living in a fantasy world based on a lie that they tell themselves that God will not judge them for their sins since they “prayed the prayer” to receive Christ. But they are not facing reality.

So many of them are boasting that when they die that they are going to heaven, regardless of how they are living their lives. But that is an illusion that makes them feel good, but it is an unhealthy avoidance of their present situation as they retreat into wistfulness as an escape from their current woe. For their current woe, which they are avoiding facing, is that, if they continue in deliberate and habitual sin, and not in walks of holiness and righteousness and in obedience to our Lord, they will not inherit eternal life with God.

So, the message the Lord wants me to share today is not just about assuming that our plans are going to happen just as we planned them and that nothing can stop them. But it is about living in the unreality of a dream that, either everyone goes to heaven, or that they will go to heaven when they die just because they made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. But Jesus said that not everyone who calls him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one DOING the will of God (Matthew 7:21-23).

For God put within all of us the knowledge of his will (see Romans 1:18-32), so that we are without excuse if we choose sin in place of our Lord, and in place of walks of obedience to his commands. For whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. So if we know right from wrong, which we all should, but we choose wrong, and we choose to do evil, in practice, and not the good that we know to do, we cannot then presume upon the Lord that he is going to welcome us into his heaven. He isn’t! 

So, the encouragement here is to live in reality, and to accept the truth, and to reject the lies of Satan which are telling you that you can keep sinning against the Lord and it won’t be held to your account. And don’t assume you have tomorrow, because tomorrow may never come. And don’t assume that God is going to welcome you into his heaven, for he may, instead, say to you: “I never knew you. Depart from me you workers of lawlessness,” because you refused to obey the Lord and you chose to obey sin, instead.

[Matt 7:21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-24; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:5-11; Titus 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb 10:23-31; 1 Co 10:1-22; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]

Broken Cord

An Original Work / August 29, 2018

Your bond is broken with your Lord and Savior

And your testimony is separate from Him.

Your words not matching your actions today.

Repent of your sin and bow down and pray.

Live what you testify in truth always.

Purity’s lacking in your life and witness,

For you profess one thing, but other you do.

Not moral, spiritual. Still of the flesh.

Not living in truth to what you confess.

Lying about it puts you in a mess.

Living a lie is your practice, ‘tis true of you.

Masquerade righteousness – none of it true.

Your heart is not given to your Lord God.

Because of how you live, you are a fraud.

Turn from your sin and give your life to God.

https://vimeo.com/287303934