Our Five Year Plans
And Jacob said to Pharaoh, "The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty years; few and evil (hard or difficult) have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage." (Genesis 47:9 NKJV)
Looking Back
Perhaps it is wise to never look back but then again, looking back can sometimes be enlightening. We have come to the end of another year. I remember when a year seemed like a long time. Now it seems like years come and go faster and faster. You young people obviously won’t relate to that, but one day you will. We spend the first 20 years of our life preparing, the next 40 years of our life pursuing, the last 20 years of our life remembering. Then we die! And what was it all about? Jacob says he was a pilgrim, he was just passing through this life to that sacred place in the next.
The Age Old Question
People have always been asking what life is all about. When I was younger, I thought it was all about planning for a successful future. Now that I am older, I still want to know what I am supposed to be when I grow up. Some people make their marks getting rich. Then they die! Others make their marks getting famous. Then they die! Others make their marks being total jerks while others make their marks being the proverbial nice guys who always help others and are always nice. Then they die! It is that problem with dying that makes us all question what life is all about.
The Bible has the Answer
One thing is clear. The Bible says that we are made of dust (dirt, mud or clay) and we go back to dust. Practical experience proves the Bible right on that issue. How God can form a baby of dust or clay in the womb of a mother is beyond me. But the Lord is artistic and uses the clay to make something unique and beautiful time after time. But of course that is the body.
Inside that body is a soul and spirit. I have heard different explanations of the soul and the spirit but even the Bible has a hard time separating the two. Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews 4:12 NKJV).” So to keep it simple, let us say that the soul has to do with our thinking and the spirit has to do with our energy. Taken together, they represent the eternal part of man that resides in that body of clay. So when the body dies, what happens to the eternal part of man? The Bible says that it exists eternally. But some people go to be “with the Lord” who is in heaven. And some are separated from God forever and go to a final destination called the Lake of Fire. The difference has to do with with one thing—what did the Lord Jesus Christ mean to us in this short period we call life? Did we take time out from what we wanted in life to give our Creator what He wanted? Did we realize that this life is difficult or hard and short because of the rebellious self-willed nature with which we are born? Did we prepare in this short hard life for a life of bliss with the Lord for eternity? Have we prepared to meet God by getting the forgiveness of sins that comes with trusting the One we all claim to be worshiping this time of the year?
Our Five Year Plan
It is customary for employers to ask prospective employees where they expect to be in five years. Many of you are already putting together your five year plan so that you will be prepared for the next step in your career or perhaps for retirement. But you may have forgotten something that a rich man in Luke forgot. He had his barns full. His 401 K was more than adequate. He had arrived and now he was going to enjoy the fruits of his labor. But he forgot one thing. The Lord said, “Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided (Luke 12:20 NKJV)?” He had prepared but for what and for whom? He ended up leaving it all to others. And what about eternity? Was he prepared? Likely not!
The Audit
We are going to meet God and if we are saved before we die we are told we will be rewarded for faithfulness to the Lord. I don’t know how those rewards will work–just being in heaven is a pretty good reward as far as I am concerned. If we rejected the Lord in this life, there may very well be degrees of punishment in eternity for unbelievers. But maybe we shouldn’t wait until we die to do an audit of our lives. Our five year plans will be the plans of fools if we have not properly prepared for eternity by trusting the Lord to put away our sins so that we can enjoy eternity. We need to recognize that life is short and hard or difficult but eternity is long. Regardless of what other planning we do, we need to prepare for eternity.
Bruce Collins
Meditation for the week of December 30, 2018
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