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14th March 2024
ThursdayReflection
'John Piper' discusses
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"If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that."
The aim today is to put all our pledging and all our planning in a humble place under the sovereignty of God over all things.
Let's walk through this text together, see the picture of God that is here, and how James says it should affect us.
Who Is James Addressing?
"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.'"
James 4:13."
James is reprimanding some folks here - perhaps businessmen or merchants - but it is stated very broadly so as to include virtually anyone. Anyone who does what?
What's the problem here? Is this wrong?
To plan and intend to go places and do things? No, not per se.
In verse 15 he is going to say it is legitimate to plan to do this or that.
What's wrong then, if it's not planning?
What's wrong is that the plan is made in the mind, and spoken with the mouth, without taking a true view of life and God into account.
In verse 14, James says
"Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.
You are just a vapour that appears for a little while and then vanishes away."
In other words, you are not taking this view of life into account.
My Life Is a Vapour. So What?
I can imagine some American pragmatist saying,
"What practical difference would it make in my business planning whether I believe my life is a vapour?
Do I stop planning, because my life may be short or uncertain?"
I think James would say,
"No, you don't stop planning. You don't drop out of society.
You don't become a hermit, waiting for your little vapour of life to disappear."
So what is the point?
The point is that for James, and for God, it matters whether a true view of life informs and shapes the way you think and how you speak about your plans.
Your mindset matters.
Ponder this.
Believing that your life is a vapour may make no practical, bottom-line difference in whether you plan to do business in a place for one month or one year or ten years.
But, in James' mind - and he speaks for God - it makes a difference how you think about it and talk about it.
"Come now you who say . . ."
Why? Why does that matter?
Because God created us not just to do things and go places with our bodies, but to have certain attitudes and convictions and verbal descriptions that reflect the truth - a true view of life and God.
God means for the truth about himself and about life to be known and felt and spoken as part of our reason for being.
You weren't just created to go to Denver and do business; you were made to go to Denver with thoughts and attitudes and words that reflect a right view of life and God.
So he says in verse 14, in all your planning, keep in your mind and give expression with your lips to this truth.
That is, keep in mind that you have no firm substance on this earth.
You are as fragile as mist and vapour.
Keep in mind that you have no durability on this earth, for you appear "for a little while" - just a little while. Your time is short.
And keep in mind that you will disappear.
You will be gone, and life will go on without you. It matters, he says, that you keep this view of life in mind.
"You ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.'"
So what is the right view of God that he teaches us to have?
First, when he says, "If the Lord wills, we will live," he teaches us that the duration of our lives is in the hands of God.
God is ultimately in control of life and death.
We may not know how long our vapour-like life will linger in the air, but God knows, because God decides how long we will live:
"If the Lord wills we will live."
And James is saying: If this is a true view of life and God, then it should shape our mindset and shape our way of talking.
Paul left Ephesus and said,
"I will return to you again if God wills."
For most of his life he did not know if the next town might be his burial place.
That was in the hands of God.
And so are our lives. God will decide how long we live and when we die.
And James' point is: God means for that truth - that reality - to shape our mindset and our attitude and our words.
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This is an edited version.
The full article and Bible references are avaiable on request
John Piper
(@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary.
For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God:
Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently
Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy.
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