August 13
August 13
Psalm 90:7–11
Death: A Reason for Life
Life expectancy in the United States is up to seventy-five years. That’s good news; twenty-five years ago it was only seventy years. Perhaps it will keep going up, but in comparison to eternity, the human life span is short. That’s why we read, “The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away” (v. 10).
That sounds like a rather doleful statement, but it’s true. The setting of Psalm 90 is found in the events recorded in Numbers 14. God had brought the Jews directly to Kadesh-Barnea. He said, “Now go in and possess the land.” And they would not do it. They doubted God’s promise and questioned His wisdom. They did not believe He would enable them to conquer the land. As a consequence, God said, “All right, everybody twenty years and older is going to die within the next forty years.” And that’s what happened—the world’s longest funeral march. For the next forty years the nation wandered in the wilderness, while that older generation died. Then God took the younger generation on a whole new crusade, and they conquered the Promised Land.
The older people knew they were going to die before they got to the Promised Land. But Christians today know that when we die we’ll go to the place Jesus is preparing for us. It’s important to make our lives count while we are on earth. Yes, our lives have their difficulties, and if the Lord doesn’t return soon, our lives will end in death. But death will lead to eternity. And we can live a life of the eternal today. The Bible says, “He who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17). Let’s touch the eternal today by abiding in the Almighty and doing His will.
You need not die to bring eternity to the present. You do so by abiding in God and doing His will. Determine to make your life count. Invest it in eternity.