“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.’ 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. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will
live and do this or that.’ As it is, you
boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then,
knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them” (James
4:13-17).
When we
make our plans and simply ask God to “rubber stamp” them, we are wrong! When we say, “I am going to work two more
years and then retire and then spend my winters in Mexico” and then pray to God
and ask him to make that all work out for us, we are wrong!
We are not
supposed to be here for what we want. We
are supposed to be here for what God wants.
We are supposed to be asking, “What does God want me to do today?”
Now,
someone is going to say, “Wait a minute!
Life is short and we have to live it and get the most out of it. This is our one chance to do what we want and
be happy. Besides, you should only serve
God when you really want to. If it is
forced, you should not do it!” I hear
that all the time, but that, too, is wrong.
How do I know?
Think about
the “Garden of Gethsemane”. Jesus did
not really want to go through the pain and torture of the cross and so, on the
night before it happened, he asked God to take it away from him. However, he ended his prayer with the famous
words, “Not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:39-44). You
likely know how that situation ended.
Here is the
thing: If we only serve when we feel
like serving and if we only do what we want to do, we will miss most of the
good that we could do.
By the way,
that is why this passage ends with the comment about how “knowing the good you
could do and not doing it is sin”. That
is not a separate idea! That is the entire
point! Your life is short, therefore do
not waste it just living for yourself.
God is not
here for you and your plans! You are
here for God!
When we get
things in the proper order, then everything else falls into place as well.
“Seek first
his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as
well” (Matthew 6:33).
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