September 21
“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit’; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.’ But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin,” James 4:13-17.
In their arrogance, people often boast and brag about what they plan to do at the present and in the future, and they speak as if they can get along without God’s help. Furthermore, they are concerned primarily about buying and selling and making a profit. “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit.’” The apostle James reminds us that we have no knowledge of what will happen tomorrow – or, for that matter, what will happen in the next minute or the rest of today!
Through the prophet James, the Lord reminds us of the brevity of life. “For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” If you are heating water or some other liquid on the stove, when it gets to a certain temperature, you see the vapor rise, and then it vanishes, just like that. It is of short duration. Even if a person lives to be some eighty or ninety years old, when the person looks back, he or she asks, “Where did the years go?”
Indeed, God does not want us to worry about the future. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Do not worry, saying ‘What shall we eat?’ or, ‘What shall we drink?’ or, ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble,” Matthew 6:31-34. Briefly put, Jesus says that every day has enough troubles of its own; don’t add to them by worrying!
There is a difference between worrying and planning. God does want us to plan for the future. However, God wants us to plan trusting in His Word and in harmony with His will. “You ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.’” If I had not planned to write this devotion, it would never have been written. However, I planned and prayed that God would guide me to write a God-pleasing and faith-strengthening devotion.
If we boast and brag of what we can do without God’s help, that is a display of arrogance, and “all such boasting is evil.” James adds, “To him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” There are sins of commission and sins of omission. Sins of commission are the sins we actually commit. Sins of omission are the things that we omit doing which we know God wants us to do. When we know what God wants us to do and we do not do it, then we are sinning by doing nothing!
Humbly we come into God’s presence, and we firmly believe that the blood of Jesus Christ His Son has cleansed us from all our sins of commission and omission. We also pray that God would increase our trust and faith in His promises to provide for us the necessities of this life, and we pray that He would keep us from worrying. We further pray that God would bless our planning according to His good and gracious will.
“Oh, that the Lord would guide my ways
To keep His statutes still!
Oh, that my God would grant me grace
To know and do His will!
Order my footsteps by Thy Word,
And make my heart sincere;
Let sin have no dominion, Lord,
But keep my conscience clear.” Amen.