Daily Devotion

July 18, 2006

Psalms 103:15-16 As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. (16) For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.

My friend, Marshall, refurbished old computers that he would donate to schools and ministries. I sent many of these machines abroad to fledgling computer training centers in poorer countries. Marshall had turned his garage into a computer parts warehouse as well as into a workshop, from where he taught teenagers how to build and maintain computers. What a passion he had for this project! A couple of years later he passed away, and his grown sons emptied the garage and sent it all to the dump. They felt they could finally dispose of this ‘junk’ that they felt their father had wasted his time with.

Such a spirit of vanity and uselessness prevails today. A man can work his whole life to build an empire, or even a good reputation for his family, but he has no guarantee that his children will take over after him. He can’t be sure that they will not obliterate his hard work after he’s gone. This generation is left with the mentality of ‘let’s eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die’, and with very little or no care for future generations. There was a time when a man knew that by his own hard work, he could leave a farm, a company, an inheritance to his children They were thankful to carry on the family business or farm after the father died. This hope existed in spite of the knowledge that tragedy or the simple passing of time could in a moment dry the flower of the finest of hopes. God has a way of reminding us that He ultimately sits at the controls. What is then a man to do to escape this sense of uselessness and emptiness?

Jesus warned us of this when He said, “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life….” (John 6:27). He also gave us this parable, “The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened (Mat 13:33). Only what is done for Jesus Christ in this life will resist the corruption of time and the devaluation of the currency of human values. It will even use time to augment its own worth.

Let us today honestly take stock of the quantum of our life; how much of it is the ‘perishing ’ part, and how much the ‘enduring’ part (John 6:27). Let us make sure to leave behind us a spiritual inheritance of enduring eternal souls won for His eternal heavenly Kingdom.

1 Corinthians 3:13-15 Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. (14) If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. (15) If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. .

Patrick Lumbroso
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