To Do or Not To Do

Today’s Bible Reading:  2 Chronicles 29-31; James 4

Journal Entry on a passage from today’s reading:
Topic: Righteousness

SCRIPTURE:  James 4:13-17

¹³ Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." ¹⁴ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." ¹⁶ As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷ Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. (James 4:13-17 NIV)

OBSERVATION:

A key observation from this passage is first that life is short and we have no foreknowledge of when our earthly life will end. Whatever grand plans we may have for the span of our lifetime are insignificant alongside eternity. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to spend the life we have doing right—doing what God has called us individually to do—doing the good we know to do. To refuse to do so, or to put it off, is to sin against God and against our world.  

APPLICATION:

I must seek above all else to determine the good God has given me this life to do. I must allow my own humanly devised ambitions to be replaced in favor of that God-given good. Wherever I plan to go and whatever I plan to do, I must say that I will only go and do, “if it is the Lord’s will” (v. 15). I must realize that whatever the span of my earthly life may be, I will experience the greatest fulfillment and joy only when I am doing life His way rather than my own.

PRAYER:

Lord forgive me when I have wasted life doing other than your will. Reveal to me the good I ought to do and grant me the courage and ability to accomplish it for Your Name’s sake. Amen.  –AP