Life is a Vapor

Tuesday, February 25

Life is a Vapor

Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour. Matthew 25:13

Yesterday as I watched the memorial service for Kobe Bryant, I could not help but think, “These families left their house early Sunday morning to head to a game and never returned home.” I cannot get it out of my head how uncertain life can be. And what about those who did not accept Christ before their death? No doubt, some of them would have accepted Him later had they been blessed to live longer. But that’s the point. There are no guarantees. Life is uncertain. Tomorrow is not a promise.

James is right: Life is a vapor! Like a morning fog that blocks our visibility and then soon vanishes, so life is short and uncertain. There are no guarantees about tomorrow, let alone next year or ten years from now. You may be young and healthy this morning, but you easily could be a corpse without warning. You may be thinking, “That’s morbid! I don’t want to think about death!” But if you ignore these things, you will not live your life properly in light of eternity.

Because life is a vapor we should humble ourselves before God and obey His will.

We tend to take life for granted. We assume tomorrow is a given but it is not. The challenge for us, as we read and consider the significance of these words, is whether we are indeed expecting Him, and, furthermore, are we prepared for Him? If we definitely knew that Jesus was coming back next week, would we be behaving any differently today? What would we be saying to our families? What would we be telling our neighbors? What would we be doing in our communities? Would our church activities be any different over the next seven days? Would we be preparing ourselves and others?

All we have for certain is today…