Run With It: Don't Take Life For Granted

Friday, January 2, 2026

Don't Take Life For Granted

A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.

“For we have been consumed by Your anger

And by Your wrath we have been dismayed.

You have placed our iniquities before You,

Our secret sins in the light of Your presence.

For all our days have declined in Your fury;

We have finished our years like a sigh.

As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years,

Or if due to strength, eighty years,

Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow;

For soon it is gone and we fly away.

Who understands the power of Your anger

And Your fury, according to the fear that is due You?

So teach us to number our days,

That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:7-12 NASB1995)

This is a continuation of the prayer of Moses, the man of God, apparently during the time when the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness for a period of 40 years. God was not pleased with that generation, for the most part, for the majority of them rebelled against God, and against his servant Moses, and they engaged in all sorts of wickedness and evil behavior in direct defiance against God and against his commandments. And so most of them did not get to enter into the Promised Land nor into God’s eternal rest because of their disobedience, i.e. because of their unbelief.

And this serves as examples to us so that we do not set our hearts on evil as they did and end up with the same results (1 Corinthians 10:1-22). For the Scriptures teach us that faith in Jesus Christ, which is genuine, will result in us denying self, dying to sin, and obeying our Lord and his commandments, in practice, although not necessarily in absolute sinless perfection (1 John 2:1-2). But they also teach us that if sin is our practice (habit, addiction), and not walks of obedience to our Lord and to his commands, that we will die in our sins. We will not inherit eternal life with God (1 John, chaps 1-3).

When this mentions “secret sins,” please know that they are not hidden from God. He can see all that we do, and he knows what we are doing even if everyone else can’t see. Nothing is hidden from God. You may hide your “secret sins” from your spouses, your friends, your neighbors, your family, and others who profess faith in Jesus, but you can’t hide your sins from God. You can’t fool God even if you are able to fool other humans. And “secret sins” fall under the judgment of God, same as obvious sins. And God will judge all of us according to our deeds (Romans 2:5-10; Romans 6:1-23).

And then we are reminded here of the shortness of life over which we have little control by comparison to God’s control. So we should never take life on this earth for granted, thinking that we are going to live to old age and beyond. You may not have the next breath of life. You may not be given the opportunity to repent of your sins and to follow Jesus Christ in obedience to his commands before you die. Tomorrow doesn’t come for everyone. So don’t take life and time on this earth for granted. Repent of your sins and obey God today so you can be assured of eternal life with God in heaven.

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

Refiner’s Fire

By Brian Doerksen

Purify my heart,

let me be as gold and precious silver.

Purify my heart,

let me be as gold, pure gold.

Purify my heart,

cleanse me from within

and make me holy.

Purify my heart,

cleanse me from my sin, deep within.

Refiner's fire,