The Time is Short - This World is Passing Away
1Corinthians 7: 29-31 What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.
There has to be more to life than this. How often have we found ourselves mulling over this common lament? We learn to trust and are betrayed. We learn to love and are heartbroken. We navigate life and negotiate ourselves through treacherous waters every day. We see rampant greed destroying this country every day, while petty partisanship divides the country into red and blue swatches of animosity. We are constantly given the other side to hate. The other side to blame for the moral and intellectual failings of the world as a whole. Blame makes us feel a little bit better about the role we play.
We can struggle day by day just to survive. Paycheck to
paycheck. Forty years ago you could survive as a family on one income, but
rarely is that the case anymore. The richest country in the history of the
world still has 3.5 million homeless people. Of those, 39% are children. The
numbers get far worse once we leave the media protected shores of the
The point of this devotional is not to depress but to
reinforce some truths from the key verses above. First of all; the time is short. The Apostle Paul
wrote this thousands of years ago, which only makes the time shorter today. As
we see
Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. Matthew 24: 4-8
In 2010 alone, there already have been over 4700 earthquakes; 67 of which are at 6.0 or higher on the Richter Scale. Famine has increased by 105 million people between 2007 and 2008 alone. The time is indeed short. The illusion the world sells us is that we will always have more time. But the Bible describes our life as a vapor:
whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. James 4: 14 (NKJV)
