Running Out of Time

I’m thinking about a line in one of my son’s songs that I just listened to: “Spending every moment trying to forget that their running out of time.” Sadly this is exactly what almost everyone is doing with their lives. To prioritize and gear your life to live after the things that pertain to this life is simply an absolute waste of time in the truest sense. If that waste is not corrected it can only end up at the line in the song that immediately follows the one quoted: “The coffin door will close, a few words will be said; man will look at a legacy, while God sees a life never lived.” It really does sadden my heart to sit here and realize how many people are running hard to get to that end, including a lot of folks that I know personally. It brings to mind a very wise and simplistic saying by Solomon, the ancient king of Israel to whom God gave extraordinary wisdom: “I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?” (Eccl. 2:2). That’s the question I have to ask of all who are neglecting the Savior who left heaven just to suffer and die that we might have life, and I have to ask it about EVERYTHING that one might be doing while continuing in that neglect. “What doeth it?” Brings to mind a saying from that very Savior: “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mat. 16:26). Someone will invariably say something like, “God’s done a lot for me.” Well I’m aware of that, and better yet so is he. But what he is concerned with, is what are we doing for him? There’s really only one thing we CAN do for God that is acceptable with him, and the apostle Paul laid it out nice and neat for us: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Rom. 12:1,2). Anyone can make of that statement whatever they like, but there is a truth and reality there that can be attained to by any and all who truly WANT to attain to it. It’s actually the same exact thing as the first and greatest commandment: “And [Jesus] answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself” (Lk. 10:27).

Keeping the first and greatest commandment and the second one that is like unto it will come naturally to someone who has truly been born of God’s Spirit, and who lives their life in the power of his Spirit to die to their own self, thereby allowing God to “work in [them] both to will and to do of HIS own good pleasure” (Rom. 6:6; Philip. 2:13; I Pet. 4:1,2). That is how we offer ourselves to God as “a living sacrifice,” as quoted from Romans above. If we are not doing these things, and if being found acceptable to God is not our top priority, then we are surely wasting our life. If we are unconcerned about whether anyone else is doing these things, and we are doing little to nothing to change that, then we are surely wasting our lives. And that brings me back again to my son’s song, and to the line just before the one that I began with: “They’ll drown their conscience in friends, they’ll drown their sorrow in wine.” This world provides every distraction imaginable to turn people away from the only reason that they are here, and if one is not “sober and vigilant” as the apostle Peter said, then there is only one inevitable outcome: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (I Pet. 5:8). My question is, why would someone fool themselves their entire life just to find out at the end that they’ve fooled themselves, and that they have also missed out with God for eternity? It just doesn’t make sense. That brings to mind another line from another Gospel song from another artist that I love: “Let’s worry about it people when we all get there.” That really is the mentality of most people, just rushing from one temporal thing to the next, “trying to forget that their running out of time.” All I can say my friend is that my hope, my desire, and my prayer is that when my coffin door and yours closes; that God will be smiling, and we will be there smiling with him. So if that is our aim, and I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be, let us take the more earnest heed to the admonition of the great apostle Paul: “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (II Cor. 7:1). Amen and God bless.