“Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” (James 4:14 NASB)
Yesterday, I was talking to my cousin who just lost a close friend to breast cancer at the young age of 35. I listened with compassion as she shared her thoughts and feelings while periodically becoming overwhelmed with emotion.
It’s never easy to say goodbye to someone you love.
But it can be all too easy to become complacent in life and assume that you have a long time left to live. Last year, I learned how quickly things can change when my heart stopped for a full 5 minutes after a routine surgery.
Life is not guaranteed.
Saturday, I sat watching Whitney Houston’s funeral service online, along with millions of others around the world. And I cannot seem to erase the image of her body being carried down the center aisle as her melodious voice sang “I Will Always Love You.”
The tears fell from my eyes more rapidly than I could catch them.
No one could have told me that at 48, her lifeless body would be concealed inside a golden box; or that her golden voice would set the atmosphere for the somber occasion; or that a golden hearse would whisk her away to be buried; or that all the golden moments of her life would come to such an abrupt ending.
Life is so fleeting.
Each day that we are presented with opportunities to walk out our life’s purpose, we must seize them all, because tomorrow is not promised to any of us.
No one lives inside this “earthly tabernacle” forever. A final day of reckoning will come. Ecclesiastes 3:20 NIV reminds us, “All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.”
So live every day for the Lord. Make worship a lifestyle. Present your body as a living sacrifice as Romans 12:1 instructs. And don’t cling to life for fear of death. But strive to live on purpose, so that when death inevitably comes, you will have done everything you were supposed to do. And you will be able to go in peace.
As the saying goes, “Live full. Die empty.”
I want to encourage you not to just treasure life, but treasure the kind of life that prepares you for eternal life with Christ Jesus our Lord. To drive home this lesson, I’m sweetening your cup of inspiration with a scripture found in Matthew 6:19-20 NIV. It says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”
When you drink down the contents of your cup, you'll be reminded to live, not for those temporal things that have no true meaning or value... but to live for what matters to God.
Now let’s pray together.
Father, I thank You for the gift of life and for the reminder that death is nothing to fear, as long as I live my life in a way that prepares me to meet You one day. Help me to please you daily in all I say an do, so I can make an impact with eternal value, and be ready to live with You in eternity when my time comes. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
As always, thanks for reading and until next time... may today's cup of inspiration uplift, encourage, and empower you!
