James 4:13 Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
15 For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
16 But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.
17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
Some people have a full year calendar or a daytimer or some other method to mark out their plans for the year. In today’s digital world, the cell phone has a calendar that gives the option of adding events to the days of the year. God is not telling us it is wrong to plan ahead. What He is telling saints is that we must be mindful of the fact that God has the right to change our plans at a moments notice, and even without notice. A person might get sick and not be able to fulfil some obligation. A person might have a bad fall and break some bones and this would limit them as well. A person might die suddenly and that would naturally change everything.
The true child of God has a different sense of value than the lost have. The lost live for this world. That is all they have. They have to have a vacation. They cannot just stay home. They need to travel and see different things. The world system understands this and so there is a wide range of options they put out there. The true child of God seeks God’s will for what is important.
In verse 14 we are reminded that our life is like a vapour. A vapour does not last long. The only vapour that lasts longer than it should is the “chemtrails” that we see in the sky. Now I have opened a can of worms. The governments have even admitted occasionally that they do put out chemtrails at times. The governments are delusional and they think they can make the weather more suitable than God can. Of course they do not believe in God anyway. Man has messed with the weather but he cannot control what he does. God laughs at the foolishness of man. God shows us in the Bible that He controls the weather. He uses the weather to get our attention. He also is able to bless us with good weather.
Our life is like a vapour. It is quite short. I will soon be 73 years old. God’s time clock is ticking and it never misses a beat. There are many things we plan and we can be quite busy. Soon this life will be over for each one of us. The Lord’s return is imminent. We need to be mindful of that at all times. Some of us have health issues that remind us that we are living on borrowed time. That is alright as long as it is lived on God’s time.
In verse 15 we see the importance of remembering that we belong to God. Keep in mind, the message of James is to saints. The lost are wasting their time. They will regret that one day. Born again Christians are servants of the true God. We need to exalt Him in all that we say and do. If the Lord will, we will do this or that.
In verse 16 we are reminded that boasting is sin. It is not us that need to be known. It is Christ that needs to be known. We need to make much of God. We need to take the position of John the Baptist:
John 3:30 He must increase, but I must decrease.
The hope of man is found in Christ. Those who reject the true God and His Son the Lord Jesus Christ, have no hope. They have ideas and they make plans, but they have no hope. I attended the funeral of a woman that died of old age recently. In her last years she had Alzheimers. She had been a busy woman, but she was a lost woman. She had done much canning and baking and cooking, but she was a lost woman. In her final year she attended our services at a local care home. I do not know how much she understood. She seemed to appreciate being there. Her husband would come to visit her, but he would not come to our services. He would wait until we were done. Unless that woman was saved during that last year of her life, she is in torment today and will remain there for all eternity. Unless her husband changes his mind and gets saved, he will spend eternity in hell. They will be lonely and suffering in torment for all eternity.
There are millions of people in that same situation. They don’t care about that which is important. We, who are saved need to be sure to make much of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In verse 17 we are further reminded that if we know we should be doing something the Lord tells us to do, but we do not do it, we are sinning. There are times when we just don’t feel like doing what we ought to do. We need to ask God to give us a change of heart so that we will do what He wants us to do. Of course that is for those who are saved.
We need to keep in mind that God changes the heart of the saved person. We need to yield to the will of God and when we do so, He gives us the joy of serving Him. It is not a drudgery to serve the Lord. It is a blessing to serve the Lord. The rewards of serving God are out of this world.
Pastor Bartel
