In two more days (From Sunday December 29th), the year 2019 will be history! We will be using the words like, “it was,” “I remember,” and “I recall.” All of which are “looking back” into what is now history! The three hundred-sixty-five days that started on day one, have passed one-by-one, event by event; some were filled with days of joy, while others had their time of sadness. Some brought to our faces smiles and others put tears into our eyes! We received some of the sweetest things in life, a hug from a grandchild; and at other times, we gave hugs of “good-by” to family and friends as they had to return home. Some days brought to us “good” things and not so “good” things. This is time, it passes, gone forever, never to come our way again! As someone said, “That’s life!”
Question, in the last year, did we ever think of this great truth, as James wrote: “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” (James 4:13)? When we should have understood: “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” (verse 14). So, just what should we be saying: “For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that” (verse 15). So, we should know that “time” is only a loan, and with each passing second, it is gone never to be used by us again! Time does not belong to us; God gives it to us to use but we are responsible for how we use it! As to how we used it, we will have to give answer for each day: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Ecc.12:13-14).
In the beginning God, as Moses wrote: “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good” (Gen. 1:16-18). So, why did God create these? He did so for man, whom God was about to make; but God knew before creating man and woman, that we would need such for our living, for our need to know how to divide time! Then, he made us responsible how we used this divided time!
At the end of each year we are able to say, three-hundred-sixty-five days, have now passed, they have each gone one-by-one into history! On the other hand, with each hour, we have used wisely or foolishly, for good or evil; for seriousness or foolishness, to work or play, for family and friends, or otherwise! But, the important thing, was each hour used as God would have it used; in play, in work, in worship of God “in spirit and in truth,” or did we use God’s time to serve a false god; “Professing themselves (ourselves, frw) to be wise, they (we, frw) became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things” (Rom. 1:22-23)?
One of the great things that God has given us, is the opportunity to repent and change the way we do things! Paul let those of Athens know about one God, who they “ignorantly worship(ped)” but we protest, we would never do such? Are you sure? We serve the “god of things,” things made by the hands of man, both day and night! We just don’t call them “gods!” Maybe the Athenians were more honest than we; as they confessed to worshipping at the altar of “THE UNKNOWN GOD!” (Acts 17:23) How many “unknown” gods do we really worship? I remember a preacher saying, that before he left for Africa, that we parked our one car in a one-car garage! But when he came back from Africa, we had a two-car garage, but the car plus a boat was now in the driveway, the garage was full of things, and in the back yard we had built an outbuilding for other things! Yet, we confessed to not “worshipping” things! But do our “things” tell on us?
Well, the year 2019 is going to end; like it or not, it is going to end when the clock strikes its last “note” at mid-night! So, what should we do? We should/must determine to serve and worship the One True God, and him only in the New Year, should God give us such time! Friends; let us bid “so-long” to the year 2019 while looking forward to the New Year 2020 with a promise of using it better, using it more wisely, and in more service and worship of God.
Frank R. Williams