Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
“For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”
James 4:14
“The Voice said, ‘Cry Out!’ And he said, ‘What shall I cry?’ [And the Voice said], ‘All flesh is grass! . . . The grass withers, the flower fades.’ ”
Isaiah 40:6-7
Part of the foolishness that is tightly wound around the heart of every child born of man on earth (Prov. 22:15) is the failure to realize how brief life on earth is. Even as a man, Moses cried out for deliverance from the foolishness of his heart, and the hearts of all God’s people, pleading with God, to “teach us to number our days, so that we may apply our hearts to wisdom” (Ps. 90:12).
Moses understood that until a man faces the fact that he really must die, and that his death will not be long in coming, that man cannot conduct himself wisely.
Jesus commanded us to consider the lilies for more than one reason. I have seen lilies in graveyards. Why not take the time today to go for a stroll in a graveyard, and consider? The only difference between you and the ones already planted in that place is time, and just a little bit of it.
Yes, your life is a vapor, but it is a vapor only while it is on this earth. After this life, we face eternity. There are no vaporous lives at all in eternity. And though it may be brief here, it can be a sweet vapor of eternal life to those around us, or it can have about it the dreadful odor of death (2Cor. 2:15-16). While we are here, then, let us live to bring some light and pleasantness into the brief lives around us. We are all on this short journey together, and a sure reward awaits at the end of the way for every deed done, as Solomon warned us, “whether it be good or whether it be evil”.