Hello friend, where are your steps taking you on this journey called life? Many of us have seen the dawn of another day that was only once known as tomorrow. If I live to be three score and ten, I will have lived 25,567 days that once were only an unknown tomorrow awaiting me.
As I see a new day dawn and anticipate the day’s events, my heart will be filled with emotions such as joy or sorrow, hope or fear, love or hatred. In these things, I want to experience the things that make me feel secure. There is throughout humanity a desire to know the outcome of the future and to be prepared as tomorrow slips into today, to be in control of my life. This is evidenced in those who reject God by seeking out fortune tellers and palm readers who employ demonic powers to gain knowledge of events that may happen in the future. We see King Saul as an example of this in First Samuel 28.
This discourse is to endeavor to understand how God our Creator and Father wants His children to relate to life in the present to prepare for a better life tomorrow. In this, I must understand there is a distinction between my physical or temporal life and that of my soul or eternal life. If I claim to be a Christian, my daily walk in this world must be in contrast to the values of the people who do not name Christ’s name. This is caused by a difference in our understanding of what tomorrow is.
Throughout the world in every race and religion is the universal desire for the betterment of existence. God created this when He placed within us a free will and the ability to make choices upon our own volition. When Satan sought to destroy the creation of God, he capitalized on this aspect that is within us. How could Eve make tomorrow better? “But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3:3,4) So Eve heeded the temptation from Satan and did what she believed would make tomorrow better, only to receive separation from God and devastation to the life of perfection she had known in the Garden of Eden. Can I discern where Eve made her mistake? Can I discern the path I take to my own destruction? How often do I find myself giving heed to the same seduction to be as a god? To think I know so much in myself that I do not need to heed God, or other godly people, is to follow the path of Eve.
The lesson is simple. While there are abounding philosophies about how to improve myself and how to improve tomorrow, there is nothing complicated about what I need to do today to make tomorrow better. Jesus summed it up in Mark 12:29-31 “And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” This, however, runs very contrary to life in my flesh. Satan has many ways of alluring and deceiving me to make the same choice that Adam and Eve made many generations ago. He paints the temptations he places before me in such a way to cause me to feel secure in myself and my own pleasures.
There is another simple evaluation in James 4:17 “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” So, we examined prior to this, that we have the choice to commit sin by actively pursuing being our own god. This verse highlights a very subtle variation to that temptation. I find it easy to be halfhearted in my daily walk with God when I must be zealous. If I want tomorrow to be better than today, I must be passionate in my pursuit of God and doing the good in every opportunity that is set before me.
How can I know if my choices today are going to make tomorrow better or worse? One way I am tempted to experiment with this is to make choices without applying myself to wisdom and then waiting to see what will happen. The book of Proverbs refers to this as the simple person. “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished”(Pro 22:3). When Adam and Eve received the punishment for their sin, they knew that giving heed to temptation made their life worse. As they were banished from the Garden, it was too late to redo the decision of eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. However, they were going to have many more choices now to make because they had received the knowledge of good and evil. I must not make the mistake of making ignorant decisions when I have the word of God ready and waiting for me to read and apply to my life. I must rise to the challenge of daily Bible reading and prayer. Walking in the Fruit of the Spirit is not optional. I must commune with God throughout the day and rely more and more upon Him for guidance. These are some of the ways that I know that what I do today will make tomorrow better from the eternal perspective.
Must I wait until I receive the judgment of yesterday’s choices to know if tomorrow will be better or worse than today? God in mercy to men has given much instruction in His word to spare us His judgment upon sin. Do I understand that the more I know and heed His written word the better tomorrow will be? I do not have to wait until I stand before Him condemned to discover that the eternity of tomorrow was decided by the life I’m living today. So, my friend, we have a decision upon us, will we seek to be as gods or will we heed the Word of God? I can hear the words of Christ echo down the ages for us today. “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 4:17).
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