JOB 21:23-26-One dies in his full vigor, being wholly at ease and secure, his pails full of milk and the marrow of his bones moist. Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of prosperity. They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them.”

The Old Testament book of Job offers a wide range of instructions and insights for Christians. A couple obvious ones are God’s sovereignty over the activities of Satan in the world and the suffering of God’s people is not always because of sin. These come forth in the first few chapters of the book. Further in, we encounter how low a believer may go in the pits of discouragement and even despair. When we get into the middle chapters, one feels like going to Job’s house and hugging him for the emotional and spiritual pain he is experiencing. It is intense and quite dark. As the book concludes, God takes Job to school in chapters 38 to 41 with a barrage of questions showing him the wide difference between Himself and Job. This is one of the main lessons of the book; seeing ourselves as we really are and God as He really is. But there is another especially important truth to learn from Job’s book. It is found in today’s scripture. It is the impartiality and inevitability of death. Job states death comes to those in perfect health and prosperous, as well as to those who suffer emotional pain and lived barely getting by in the world. Death passes by no one. Death plays no favorites to the rich or poor. As for the timing of its visit to each person? The writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews reveals the death of every person is an appointment made by God – And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment(Hebrews 9:27).Since it is scheduled by our Creator, it is an appointment we cannot cancel, miss, or reschedule.

Thinking of our death is not morbid thinking. In fact, it is the mark of wisdom and spiritual maturity. One of the most influential Christians in history and American’s greatest philosopher/theologian, Jonathan Edwards, wrote in one of his resolutions he strived to live by,“ Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.” That is a noble and spiritually wise way to orchestrate one’s thinking toward each day, even each hour, of life.

So, do we think much of death? Not the manner of death but of the certainty of death and the uncertainty of the timing of our death? We should. A wise preacher from another time said, “The chief aim in this life is to prepare for the next life.” Are we? Does the uncertainty of even another day to live before we enter eternity shape our thinking, direct our lives, and determine what we are investing our time in – the now and fleeting or the future and eternal? Or are we just living life, rarely thinking of eternity, judgment, and the afterlife? If so, we are unwise, even foolish, to the eternal realities that might come upon us even before we finish reading this nugget. Death. Think about it. It is an appointment we will keep. Prepare for it by living and investing in what will last after death for the glory of God and our eternal good.

PRAYER: “Father, may I live aware of each passing day and not miss the opportunities to serve You.”

QUOTE: “To live with a thought that today may be our last day on earth is not morbid living but wise living.”