Article III: While It Is Called Today

What Is Your Life?

Most of us wake up thinking about what comes next.

There are things to do, people who need us, decisions to make, problems to solve, appointments to keep, responsibilities to meet, and plans already forming for tomorrow.

We think about next week.

Next month.

Next year.

We think about what we hope will happen, what we are trying to prevent, what needs to change, and what we intend to do if things go as we expect.

There is nothing unusual about this.

Planning is a normal part of life.

James describes some people doing much the same thing.

Listen first to what they are saying:

“To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain…”

—James 4:13

They knew where they intended to go.

They knew how long they intended to stay.

They knew what they planned to do while they were there.

They even had an expectation of what would come from it.

Then James answers:

“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life?”

—James 4:14

Now the contrast is easier to see.

They spoke with certainty about where they would go, how long they would stay, what they would do, and what they expected to gain.

But there was something beneath all of those plans that they could not know.

They were speaking confidently about tomorrow—

and James brings their attention to the uncertainty of tomorrow itself:

“ye know not what shall be on the morrow.”

That does not mean there was anything wrong with making plans.

It means their plans reached farther than their knowledge.

And that is true of every one of us.

We make appointments for tomorrow.

We make decisions today based upon what we expect tomorrow to bring.

We worry about things that may happen.

We look forward to things we hope will happen.

We make plans because we expect tomorrow to come.

But for all the thought we give to tomorrow, there is something very simple we cannot do:

we cannot know beforehand exactly what tomorrow will bring.

But James does not stop with what we do not know about tomorrow.

He asks:

“For what is your life?”

We may not know what tomorrow will bring.

But there is something even more basic behind every plan we make for tomorrow:

we must first have the life in which to carry it out.

And that life is not something we give ourselves.

James says:

“It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”

—James 4:14

Most of the time we are too busy living to notice how quickly life is passing.

It seems like yesterday we were fifteen. Today we are fifty.

And still we make plans for tomorrow.

There is nothing wrong with that.

James says:

“For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.”

—James 4:15

Notice the order:

“we shall live”

and then:

“do this, or that.”

We usually think first about what we are going to do tomorrow.

Where we will go.

What needs to be accomplished.

What problem needs to be solved.

What decision needs to be made.

But before any of those things can happen:

“we shall live.”

We can make the plan.

We cannot give ourselves the life required to carry it out.

And perhaps that reveals something we do not always recognize about dependence upon God.

We may think of dependence as something that becomes necessary when life gets beyond our ability.

When we cannot solve the problem.

When we do not know what to do.

When our strength is not enough.

Then we turn to God.

But James brings us to something that comes before our ability is ever the question.

Before I can solve the problem—

before I can make the decision—

before I can use any strength or ability I have—

I must first have the life in which to do it.

James says:

“If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.”

—James 4:15

Our dependence upon God did not begin when we encountered something we could not handle.

We were already dependent upon Him.

And if that is true of the life itself, perhaps it is also true of the way that life is meant to be lived.

Scripture says:

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

—Proverbs 3:5–6

We are capable of thinking.

We are capable of reasoning.

We are capable of making decisions.

But capability is not independence.

God never intended those abilities to become a place where we no longer need Him.

Even our understanding is meant to remain under His direction.

The Spirit does not remove our ability to think.

He teaches us to think under the government of God.

He does not remove our will.

He teaches us to yield it to God.

He does not make our decisions for us.

He works within us so that our decisions can increasingly be governed by what God has said.

This means dependence upon God does not begin when our understanding fails.

We were meant to depend upon Him even when we think we understand.

And that raises another question:

What is guiding the way I think?

A thought can make perfect sense to me and still be wrong.

A conclusion can seem reasonable and still be based upon something I do not know.

Suppose someone does something that hurts us.

We know what they did.

But we may not know why they did it.

We may not know what they were thinking.

We may not know what they intended.

Yet we can come to our own conclusion:

They did that because they do not respect me.

Perhaps that is true.

Perhaps it is not.

But if I believe it is true, I may begin responding to that person on the basis of what I believe.

I may become angry.

I may withdraw from them.

I may treat them differently.

I may even begin judging other things they do through the same conclusion.

And this reveals something important:

What I believe affects how I respond—even when what I believe is not true.

The belief does not have to be true to affect my conduct.

I only have to believe that it is true.

That is why it matters what governs our understanding.

The same thing can happen when we look toward tomorrow.

Something concerns us.

We begin thinking about what might happen.

We imagine what could go wrong.

And as we continue thinking about it, what might happen can begin to feel like what will happen.

Nothing has happened yet.

But we have begun living as though it has.

Fear enters our thinking.

It affects our decisions.

It changes the way we respond to people.

It may even keep us from doing something we should do.

Tomorrow has not arrived, but what I believe about tomorrow has already begun affecting how I live today.

The same thing can happen in our relationship with God.

Something happens that we cannot understand.

We pray.

We wait.

Nothing seems to change.

And eventually a thought may begin to form:

Maybe God does not care.

Notice what has happened.

I began with something I genuinely did not understand.

But from what I did not understand, I formed a conclusion about God.

If I begin believing that conclusion, it will affect the way I respond to Him.

I may begin trusting Him less.

I may stop bringing things to Him in prayer.

I may begin questioning His goodness.

I may even begin moving away from Him.

Yet none of those responses proves that my conclusion was true.

They only show that I believed it was true.

So the question becomes very important:

What am I going to live by when what I think, feel, or understand does not agree with what God has said?

Jesus said:

“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

—Matthew 4:4

Notice that Jesus does not merely say that we should know the Word of God.

He says:

“Man shall…live…by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

We can know what God has said without allowing what He has said to govern the way we live.

I may know that God has told me not to fear—

and still allow fear to determine what I do.

I may know that God has told me to forgive—

and still allow what someone did to determine whether I will forgive.

I may know that God has told me to trust Him—

and still allow what I can see and understand to determine whether I will trust Him.

So the question is no longer merely:

What do I know?

It is:

What am I living by?

Fear speaks.

Pain speaks.

Anger speaks.

Desire speaks.

Past experience speaks.

Other people speak.

Our own reasoning speaks.

And God has spoken.

The question is not whether those other voices exist.

They do.

The question is:

Which one will govern me?

Fear may be telling me what is going to happen before it happens.

Pain may be telling me how I should respond to the person who hurt me.

Anger may be telling me what that person deserves.

My own reasoning may be giving me a conclusion that seems completely sensible.

But none of those voices becomes truth simply because it is convincing to me.

And none of them has to govern what I do.

The presence of another voice does not mean that voice has to govern me.

I can be afraid—

and still hear what God has said.

I can be hurt—

and still hear what God has said.

I can be angry—

and still hear what God has said.

I can admit that I do not understand—

and still hear what God has said.

This is where dependence upon God becomes very practical.

I do not merely turn to Him after I have exhausted my own ability.

I bring my thinking to Him.

I bring my reasoning to Him.

I bring my decisions to Him.

I bring my fear to Him.

I bring my hurt to Him.

I bring what I do not understand to Him.

Because the question is not whether I will think, reason, feel, or make decisions.

I will.

The question is:

What will govern me while I do?

And this work begins within.

Before another person hears my words, something has already happened within me.

Before I make the decision, something has already happened within me.

Before my anger appears in my conduct, something has already happened within me.

I have believed something.

I have accepted something as true.

I have yielded to something.

And what has been happening within begins to appear in the way I live.

Jesus said:

“A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.”

—Luke 6:45

The words come out.

But Jesus directs our attention to where they came from:

“out of the abundance of the heart…”

What appeared outwardly had already been taking shape inwardly.

This is something we encountered at the beginning of this series:

God builds from the inside out.

And now we can begin to see what that means in the ordinary circumstances of life.

The circumstance is happening to me.

But while it is happening—

something is also happening within me.

Paul describes these two realities existing at the same time:

“Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”

—2 Corinthians 4:16

Outwardly:

“our outward man perish”

Inwardly:

“the inward man is renewed day by day.”

Both were happening.

The outward condition was real.

Paul was not pretending that suffering did not hurt.

He was not saying that circumstances did not matter.

But what was happening outwardly was not everything that was happening.

There is more happening in my life than what is happening to me.

That becomes important when what is happening to me is something I desperately want changed.

Perhaps I have prayed for it to change.

Perhaps I have waited for it to change.

Perhaps I believed it would have changed by now.

But it has not.

And because the circumstance has not changed, I may begin to think:

Nothing has changed.

But that is not necessarily true.

Outwardly, the circumstance may not have changed in the way I hoped.

The problem may still be there.

The person may still be the same.

The answer I have been waiting for may still not have come.

The situation I have prayed about may look exactly as it did before.

But inwardly, something very different may be happening.

The same circumstance that once filled me with fear may still be there—

but I am beginning to trust God in it.

The person who hurt me may not have changed—

but I am no longer allowing what that person did to determine whether I will forgive.

I may still not understand why God has allowed something—

but I am learning that I do not have to understand everything before I can trust Him.

The problem I wanted God to remove may still be there—

but I am learning to depend upon Christ while I am in it.

Now we can see the difference.

Outwardly, I may be looking at the same problem.

But inwardly, I am no longer responding to that problem in the same way.

Fear may be giving way to trust.

Resentment may be giving way to forgiveness.

My own understanding may be giving way to dependence upon God.

Resistance may be giving way to obedience.

And eventually, what God is doing inwardly begins to become visible outwardly.

The person who is learning to trust God begins making decisions from that trust.

The person in whom forgiveness is being worked begins treating the offender differently.

The person learning dependence begins responding differently when he does not understand.

The inward work begins to appear in the outward life.

The circumstance around me may not have changed, but Christ is changing the person who is living through it.

This is what we mean when we say:

God builds from the inside out.

The work begins within.

Then what He produces within begins to appear in the way we think, speak, choose, obey, forgive, trust, and live.

But we often recognize change only after we can see it.

If the circumstance looks the same, we may assume nothing is happening.

If we cannot explain what God is doing, we may assume He is doing nothing.

But our inability to recognize what God is doing does not mean that God is doing nothing.

While I have been looking for something to change around me, God may already be working to change something within me.

And perhaps this brings us back to the question James asked at the beginning:

“For what is your life?”

—James 4:14

Maybe we have been looking at that question mostly from the outside.

What is happening to me?

Where am I going?

What will happen tomorrow?

Will this problem change?

Will this prayer be answered?

Those things are part of our lives.

But they are not the whole of what is happening in our lives.

While we are watching what is happening around us, God may be working on what is happening within us.

Fear may be exposed.

Resentment may be uncovered.

Our dependence upon our own understanding may become visible.

And through His Word and by His Spirit, God may be teaching us to trust where we once feared, to forgive where we once held resentment, and to depend upon Him where we once depended upon ourselves.

So when James asks:

“For what is your life?”

—James 4:14

perhaps we should not think only about how long our life will last or what will happen to us while we are here.

There is also the life being formed within us while we are here.

What am I believing?

What am I trusting?

What is governing me?

How am I responding to God?

What is happening within me while I am living this life?

That question matters because what happens within us does not remain without consequence.

What we believe affects how we respond.

What we trust affects the decisions we make.

What we yield to begins shaping the way we live.

And when God’s Word reaches something within us, we are brought to a point of response.

Perhaps His Word shows me that fear has been governing me.

Perhaps it exposes resentment I have been holding against someone.

Perhaps it shows me that I have been leaning upon my own understanding rather than trusting Him.

Perhaps I already know what God has said—

but I have been putting off doing it.

Now something has happened.

God’s Word has reached me.

And once I have heard what He has said, I have a response to make.

I can believe Him.

I can yield to Him.

I can obey Him.

Or I can resist what I have heard.

Sometimes resistance is obvious.

We simply say:

No.

But resistance does not always sound like that.

Sometimes it sounds like:

Not yet.

I know I need to forgive—

but not yet.

I know I need to deal with this—

but not yet.

I know what God has said—

but I will respond later.

“Not yet” can feel very different from “no.”

It can even allow us to believe that we intend to obey.

I am not refusing God. I am only waiting.

But waiting assumes something.

It assumes there will be another opportunity.

Another day.

Another time to respond.

And now James’s question returns with greater weight:

“For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”

—James 4:14

The life in which I am planning to obey later is the very life Scripture says:

“appeareth for a little time…”

I may intend to respond tomorrow.

But tomorrow has not been given to me.

What I have been given is Today.

And now the words of Hebrews become very personal:

“To day if ye will hear his voice,

Harden not your hearts…”

—Hebrews 3:7–8

Today.

Not because I know what tomorrow will bring.

James has already told me that I do not.

But I do know what God has given me now:

His Word is reaching me Today.

And while it is called Today—

I have the opportunity to respond.

But what does that response mean?

If God’s Word reveals fear within me, I may understand that I need to trust Him.

If He reveals resentment, I may understand that I need to forgive.

If He reveals that I have been leaning upon my own understanding, I may understand that I need to depend upon Him.

But seeing what needs to change does not mean that I can change it by myself.

And perhaps this is where what God reveals within us begins to show us something even deeper.

Our need.

The Word does not merely show me what I should do.

It shows me something about myself.

I discover that I cannot be my own source.

I cannot manufacture spiritual life from myself.

I cannot produce by effort what only Life can produce.

And Scripture does not leave us standing before our need without showing us where that Life is found.

Jesus said:

“I am the way, the truth, and the life…”

—John 14:6

Not merely:

I will show you the way.

Not merely:

I will teach you the truth.

But:

“I am…the life.”

The answer to what God’s Word has exposed within me is not simply more effort.

It is Christ.

This is where everything we have considered about the Church becomes personal.

The Life of the Church comes from Christ.

Those who give must first receive from Christ.

And now I must recognize:

the Life I need must also come from Christ.

Jesus gives us the picture we have encountered throughout this series:

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.”

—John 15:4

The branch needs the Vine.

And now that truth becomes personal.

The Life I need is not found in a better effort to produce what I already know should be present in me.

It is found in Christ.

I may know that a Christian should love.

I may know that I should forgive.

I may know that I should be patient.

I may know that I should trust.

I may know that I should be holy.

I may know that I should obey.

I may sincerely want those things to be true of me.

But the Life from which that fruit comes is in Christ.

Jesus continued:

“He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit…”

—John 15:5

The branch bears fruit because it receives its life from the Vine.

The branch is not the Source of its own life.

The Vine is.

And because the branch receives life from the Vine, fruit begins to appear.

So it is with us.

Christ is the Source.

What we receive from Him within begins to appear in the way we live.

Paul wrote:

“My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,”

—Galatians 4:19

“Christ be formed in you.”

That is deeper than learning how a Christian is supposed to behave.

God is not merely teaching us to imitate Christian conduct from the outside.

He is doing something within.

Christ is being formed within His people.

Now the circumstances of our lives begin to take on a different significance.

The circumstance may expose fear.

But Christ is teaching me trust.

The hurt may expose resentment.

But Christ is working forgiveness within me.

Uncertainty may expose how much I depend upon my own understanding.

But Christ is teaching me to depend upon Him.

The outward circumstance may eventually pass.

But something has been happening within me while I was passing through it.

And now the question James asked carries even greater weight:

“For what is your life?”

—James 4:14

Perhaps we have been measuring our lives primarily by what happens to us.

What did I accomplish?

What did I gain?

What did I lose?

What did I suffer?

What changed?

What never changed?

What prayers were answered?

What plans succeeded?

Those things are part of our lives.

But they are not the whole story.

There is another question:

What was being formed within me while those things were happening?

That question matters because the things happening around us are not permanent.

Paul wrote:

“for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

—2 Corinthians 4:18

Temporal.

The circumstance is temporal.

The possession is temporal.

The position is temporal.

The problem is temporal.

Even the body through which I am experiencing all of these things is temporal.

That does not mean these things are meaningless.

It means they are not ultimate.

And perhaps one of the great mistakes we can make is spending our entire lives trying to preserve what Scripture has already told us is passing—

while giving little attention to what God is doing within us while it passes.

The circumstance I desperately want changed may one day be gone.

The question I desperately want answered may no longer need an answer.

The thing I fear losing may eventually pass whether I lose it now or later.

But something much deeper is happening within this temporary life.

I am being brought into relationship with Christ.

I am learning His voice.

I am learning to trust Him.

I am learning to receive from Him.

I am learning that my own understanding is not my Source.

I am learning that His Life can produce what I could never manufacture from myself.

And perhaps the greatest thing that can remain after a circumstance has passed is not that I finally understood why it happened.

It may be:

I came to know Him there.

The circumstance passed.

But Christ remained.

The answer came—or perhaps it never came.

But Christ remained.

The strength I once depended upon failed.

But Christ remained.

The earthly life itself is passing.

But Christ remains.

And now we begin to see why what God is doing within His people belongs to something larger than this present life.

Jesus prayed:

“Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am…”

—John 17:24

“be with me where I am.”

There is the Divine Intention again.

Christ is not merely helping people manage temporary lives more successfully.

He is preparing a people who belong to Him—

to be with Him.

That means the inward work of God is not disconnected from eternity.

The trust being formed Today matters.

The dependence being learned Today matters.

The heart becoming increasingly yielded to God matters.

Christ being formed within His people matters.

Not because we are earning a place with Him by developing enough character.

The Life is still in His Son.

Grace is still grace.

Christ is still the Source.

But the God who has given us Life in His Son is also forming the people to whom that Life has been given.

Paul describes God’s purpose:

“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son…”

—Romans 8:29

“conformed to the image of his Son.”

There is the formation.

There is the inside-out work.

There is the fruit.

There is the purpose.

God is preparing a people whose Life is Christ and in whom the character of Christ is increasingly being expressed.

And one day—

they will be with Him.

Now the word Today becomes much larger than merely twenty-four hours.

Today is the present condition in which I can hear His voice.

Today I can believe Him when I cannot see.

Today I can trust when I do not understand.

Today I can yield when another voice is telling me something different.

Today I can receive from Christ.

Today I can know Him by faith.

And this present condition will not always remain.

John wrote:

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”

—1 John 3:2

Now—

and then.

Now we walk by faith.

Then we shall see Him as He is.

Now His voice reaches us through His Word.

Then faith will have become sight.

Now we are being formed.

Then we shall be with Him.

And perhaps this is where the urgency of Today finally finds its proper place.

Not:

Be afraid because you may die tomorrow.

But:

Do not treat as permanent the opportunity God has placed before you now.

His Word is reaching you now.

Christ is being made known now.

Your heart can respond now.

The Life you need is in His Son now.

And the One God is teaching you to know by faith—

is the One His people will one day see.

And after all that has been said about the Church—

about dependence,

about the Life,

about what is being formed within us,

about the little time in which this earthly life appears—

there remains something no one else can do for me.

I must respond to Him.

The Church can point me toward Christ.

Someone can teach me His Word.

Someone can stand beside me when I am weak.

Someone can remind me of what God has said when fear has made it difficult for me to see clearly.

Someone can tell me what Christ has done in his own life.

But no one can hear His voice for me.

No one can trust Him for me.

No one can yield my heart for me.

No one can come to Christ for me.

At some point, everything becomes personal.

His voice.

My heart.

Today.

And perhaps that is why the words in Hebrews are so simple:

“To day if ye will hear his voice,

Harden not your hearts…”

—Hebrews 3:7–8

There is no demand that I understand everything before I respond.

There is simply God speaking—

and the heart that hears Him.

Perhaps His Word has shown me something about myself that I did not want to see.

Perhaps I have discovered how much I have trusted my own understanding.

Perhaps fear has been governing more of my life than I realized.

Perhaps an old hurt has become resentment.

Perhaps I have known what God said for years without allowing what He said to govern the way I live.

Perhaps I have spent years around the things of Christ—

and I am only now beginning to realize that knowing about Him is not the same as knowing Him.

Or perhaps I do know Him.

But somewhere along the way, I began trying to live from myself again.

Whatever His light has revealed, the direction remains the same.

Toward Christ.

The fear He exposes is not merely something for me to hide.

The resentment He uncovers is not merely something for me to feel ashamed of.

The self-dependence He reveals is not merely evidence that I have failed.

What His light reveals can become the very place from which I recognize:

I need Him.

And that need does not drive me away from Christ.

It gives me reason to come.

Jesus said:

“him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

—John 6:37

I do not have to hide what He has already seen.

I do not have to repair myself before I come.

I do not have to become sufficient before I come to the One who is sufficient.

I do not have to produce the fruit before I come to the Vine.

I do not have to manufacture the Life I have discovered I do not possess in myself.

I do not have to promise that I will never struggle again.

I can come to the One who said:

“I am the way, the truth, and the life…”

—John 14:6

The Life is not in my ability to become what I should be.

The Life is in Him.

And if I have already come to Him—

I continue because I still need Him.

Coming to Christ does not end dependence upon Him.

It begins a life of dependence upon Him.

As I grow, Christ remains my Source.

So perhaps dependence was never intended to be merely the place where this article began.

Perhaps dependence is also where it was always leading.

I depended upon God for the life in which I made my plans.

I depend upon His Word when my understanding cannot see clearly.

I depend upon His Spirit for the inward work I cannot produce myself.

I depend upon Christ for the Life from which the fruit comes.

And I will never outgrow that dependence.

The answer to my insufficiency is not eventual self-sufficiency.

The answer is Christ.

And now perhaps we can return one final time to the question with which we began:

“For what is your life?”

—James 4:14

If I am speaking of this present earthly life—

it is a vapour.

It appears for a little time.

And then it vanishes away.

But Scripture also says:

“He that hath the Son hath life…”

—1 John 5:12

There are the two truths standing together.

The vapour is passing.

The Life is in His Son.

Tomorrow was never meant to be my security.

My understanding was never meant to be my life.

Christ is.

And suddenly the question is no longer merely:

How much longer do I have?

The deeper question is:

What will I do with Christ while He is being made known to me?

I do not know what tomorrow holds.

I do not know how many Todays remain.

But there is something I do know:

Life is in His Son.

His Word is reaching me now.

His voice is reaching my heart now.

And while it is called Today—

I can come to Him.