What is your life?

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—¹⁴ yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷ So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

James 4:13–17

A humble servant of the King doesn’t plan for the future without thinking of his Master. We brought nothing into this life and own nothing to take into glory. James is warning the rich particularly. It’s easy to boast of a large estate as the legacy we leave behind, but as James would say, “Beloved brothers, everything we have is the Lord’s.” Nothing we do, say, or think escapes God’s notice. Everything we do, everything we are—all we could call our own—is, in fact, the Lord’s.

Questions

• How are you doing on developing the mindset of a humble servant of God?
• When you plan for the weekend, do you consider what your Master would have you do?
• If the Lord came in person to your house, would he approve of everything there as belonging to him? Can you think of anything he might throw out?
• How do you think the last sentence (v. 17) on doing the right thing fits with everything we’ve learned in James so far?

Pray

God, who are we to come to you? By your grace alone, we are your servants, brought into your house by your divine favor. You gave us the faith we enjoy and prepared us to do what you want us to do. Your kindness is more than we could ever hope to ask for. Thank you for revealing yourself to us. Thank you for loving us. Use us as you will to build your kingdom and glorify your name.

---