James 4:13-17 NIV
13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”
14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
16 As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.
17 Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.
Proverbs 29:18 KJV
Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
Proverbs 29:18 NLT
When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is joyful.
Christian vision includes:
- PLACE
- PERIOD
- PROFIT
- PRAYER
- The LENGTH of our lives
Psalm 90:10-12 NIV – 10 The length of our days is seventy years– or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. 11 Who knows the power of your anger? For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you. 12 Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
We OVER-EXAGGERATE yesterday
We OVER-ESTIMATE tomorrow
We UNDERESTIMATE today
5 years old 8:00am
15 years old 10:30 am
25 years old 12:42 pm
30 years old 1:51 pm
35 years old 3:00 pm
40 years old 4:08 pm
45 years old 5:15 pm
50 years old 6:24 pm
60 years old 8:42 pm
65 years old 9:50 pm
70 years old midnight
The Lifebuilder’s Creed
By Dale Witherington
Today is the most important day of my life.
Yesterday with its successes and victories, struggles and failures is gone forever.
The past is past.
Done.
Finished.
I cannot relive it. I cannot go back and change it.
But I will learn from it and improve my TODAY.
TODAY. This moment. NOW.
It is God’s gift to me and it is all that I have.
Tomorrow with all its joys and sorrows, triumphs and troubles isn’t here yet.
Indeed, tomorrow may never come.
Therefore, I will not worry about tomorrow.
Today is what God has entrusted to me.
It is all that I have. I will do my best in it.
I will demonstrate the best of me in it —
my character, giftedness, and abilities —
to my family and friends, clients and associates.
I will identify those things that are most important to do TODAY,
and those things I will do until they are done.
And when this day is done
I will look back with satisfaction at that
which I have accomplished.
Then, and only then, will I plan my tomorrow,
Looking to improve upon Today, with God’s help.
Then I shall go to sleep in peace … content.
- The LORD of life
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
III. The LIVING of life.
Since life is not permanent or predictable, we must live by our PRIORITIES.