Tuesday, November 1, 2011

“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”  James 4:14

“Whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow”-  This is a statement of the obvious.  No matter how much we plan, we can not know ahead of time everything that will actually happen.  James’ readers have begun to think at to plan as those who believe that they are fully knowledgeable and in control of the future.

“For what is your life…vapour…vanishes away”-  Like a puff of smoke, or our breath that we can see on a cold day, our life is short.  Our time on this earth is not an infinite resource.  These people have presumed that because they have planned their future that it would happen the way they planned.  James is saying that if their plans haven’t included God and what He wants, their life can be wasted on thier plans with know thought of God.

Here is the point:

We don’t have the time to make plans that don’t consider what God wants.

To see this theme further check out Job 7:6-7, and Psalm 39:5

Application: 

As you make plans, formally or informally, take this into consideration- Although it may seem like you have all the time in the world, you don’t really know for sure.  We have no idea what our future holds.  Because that is true, we must make sure to consider the One who really knows and controls what our future looks like.