“You have no idea what kind of life will be yours tomorrow.” —James 4:14

Contrary to Scripture, most of us have many ideas about our lives tomorrow. We don’t expect major changes. We certainly don’t expect to die. We believe we’re in control.
God’s Word disagrees; it bluntly states: “You are a vapor that appears briefly and vanishes. Instead of saying, ‘If the Lord wills it, we shall live to do this or that,’ all you can do is make arrogant and pretentious claims” (Jas 4:14-16). We’re just thinking like everybody else, and God’s Word calls us “arrogant and pretentious.”
The Lord wants us neither to rest on our laurels nor count on the future but live for the present. “Now is the acceptable time! Now is the day of salvation!” (2 Cor 6:2) We’re not taking anything for granted. Life on earth is a gift, every heartbeat a grace. There’s no guarantee that I will be able to finish writing this sentence, or you will be able to finish reading it. Our lives are fragile, precarious, and fleeting. Anything can happen at any time.
“Only in God is my soul at rest; from Him comes my salvation. He only is my Rock and my Salvation, my Stronghold; I shall not be disturbed at all” (Ps 62:2-3).

Prayer: Jesus, in a constantly changing world, You are my Rock, my Fortress, my Refuge (see Ps 18:3).
Promise: “No man who performs a miracle using My name can at the same time speak ill of Me.” —Mk 9:39
Praise: Ronald committed as a young adult to pray daily for the conversion of six of his friends. Three of them converted within a year, two more converted within a decade, and the last one gave his life to Jesus many years later on his deathbed.

February 26, 2014 by dgcree

Seek the things that are above

St Jerome’s [ c.347 – 420 A.D. ]commentary on Ecclesiastes

in our zeal and our labour. Even though that is good, until Christ is manifest in our life it is not yet fully good.‘Every man to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and find enjoyment in his toil — this is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.’ In comparison with the man who feeds upon his wealth in the gloom of cares and hoards up perishable things with great heaviness of life, he says that man is better who enjoys his present joys. For in one case there is perhaps little pleasure in enjoyment; but in the other there is only a multitude of cares. And he gives the reasons why it is a gift of God to enjoy wealth. Because ‘he will not much remember the days of his life’. If God calls him away in the happiness of his heart, it will not be in sadness, he will not be troubled by anxiety, taken away in happiness and present pleasure. But it is better that spiritual food and spiritual drink should be understood, according to the words of Saint Paul, and to see goodness in all one’s labour, for with great labour and zeal we can behold true goods. And this is our task, that we should rejoice
‘All the toil of a man is for his mouth, yet his spirit is not filled. For what advantage has the wise man over the fool? And what does the poor man have who knows how to conduct himself before the living.’ All, over which men labour in this world, is consumed in the mouth, and, munched by the teeth, it passes down to the stomach to be digested. For the little while that it delights the appetite, it seems to give pleasure while it is held in the mouth. When it has passed to the belly, there ceases to be any difference between sorts of food.
After all this, the soul of the eater is not satisfied; either because it again longs for what it has eaten, and both the wise man and fool cannot live without food, and the poor man seeks for nothing except how he can keep the organism of his pitiful body alive and not die of hunger, or because the soul gains no advantage from the refreshment of the body and food is the same to the wise man and the fool alike and the poor man goes where he can see wealth.
It is better however that we should understand this about the writer of Ecclesiastes who, being learned in the heavenly scriptures, has his labour in his mouth and yet his soul is not satisfied since he always longs to learn. In this matter the wise man has the advantage over the fool, that, when he feels that he is poor (by ‘poor’ we mean the man who is called blessed in the gospel), he hurries to find out those things which pertain to life, and he travels along that narrow, confined path which leads to life, and is poor in evil works, and knows where Christ dwells, who is life.