“Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:34 ESV
Depending on age, load, and terrain the average human can walk 24 miles in one day. Sure, some well-trained individuals can cover many more miles than that and some older bodies much less, but that is the average. And to be philosophical, considering God constructed His days to be 24 hours long, no matter how much you train, you cannot walk any farther than your today. Yes, as much as you try, you cannot walk yourself into your tomorrow. A fact that God knows only too well as He instructs us in His Word to not forgo our todays by trying to walk into our tomorrows.
Our world today seems to strive for nothing more than just that. To simply exist today to affect tomorrow. To work hard today to ensure a richer tomorrow. To plan well today so that next year will be a breeze. To monitor our todays efficiently to see a future tomorrow deliver us well. But folks, it just doesn’t work that way. And God is the first to declare in His Word the truth of how depending on a fleeting tomorrow is foolish…as it may never come.
Perhaps nowhere better is this principle addressed than in one of the most direct books of the New Testament, the book of James:
“Now listen to me, you that say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to a certain city, where we will stay a year and go into business and make a lot of money.” You don't even know what your life tomorrow will be! You are like a puff of smoke, which appears for a moment and then disappears. What you should say is this: “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.” James 4:13-15 GNT
As Margie and I serve on the mission fields of the Americas, we do so with about 150 other IMB missionary families. And as we do, we support each other, pray for each other, and at times, mourn for each other’s losses. In the last 2 months alone we have received prayer requests from fellow missionary families that have lost loved ones to car accidents in the US. One, a 33-year-old daughter, the other, a senior adult father. I myself, many years ago, received such news as my 19-year-old sister-in-law, and 6-month year old niece were taken in a brief moment of bent metal and broken glass. It sounds cliché but the truth rings louder than the moment of impact in those collisions…we are not long for this world…we are not promised a tomorrow.
The question implores, are you spending all your effort today to prepare and plan for a tomorrow that may not arrive? And that question feeds into yet another much more important one, is your soul prepared for an unpromised tomorrow? As I share the good news of Christ with people here in Guadalajara, it never ceases to amaze me how little thought people give to their eternity. Have you thought about the eternal resting place of your soul? And don’t just suffice for what you’ve seen in movies or heard friends speculate upon, have you consulted the truth of what your Creator says about the eternal future of your soul? You see, God creates all life and thus all people. And He loves them just as an artist loves each stroke of His masterpiece and cares for it not only in this day, but into the future as well. And because God so loves the world He created; He made a way for all His creatures to reside with Him for eternity in Heaven.
God is sinless and mankind is not. Just look around the world today, you don’t need proof we live in a sinful, dark, broken world. And not just some people sin, but all. “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” (Romans 3:23 NLT) And because all transgression (sin) against God requires a blood sacrifice, God lovingly sent One for all people, for all time. As Jesus died on that cross and then rose three days later, a literal bridge was established from a sinful earth to a heavenly home. And that bridge is available for anyone that faithfully calls upon Christ as their personal Savior. A Savior that can redeem you from all sin; past, present, and future.
Friends, don’t continue to condition yourself to walk farther and farther thinking that somehow you can walk into a tomorrow that may never come. Instead, place your faith in the only One that guarantees a tomorrow…Jesus Christ, the perfect lamb that takes away the sins of the world.
I pray you live today in the comfort and peace of knowing your tomorrow is secure in Jesus Christ ~ Dan
“All honor to God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; for it is His boundless mercy that has given us the privilege of being born again so that we are now members of God’s own family. Now we live in the hope of eternal life because Christ rose again from the dead. And God has reserved for his children the priceless gift of eternal life; it is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay.”
1 Peter 1:3-4 TLB
