June 13 The Day of the LORD

Joel 2:1 Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill. Let all who live in the land tremble, of the day of the LORD is coming. It is close at hand.

First, for any of you who follow this blog at all, I have been rather under the weather for the last week. It appears, as we all probably know, that antibiotics can be the greatest thing since sliced bread or sometimes more like burnt toast. For the last couple of weeks I have been dealing with the burnt toast side, but I think we are finally out of the woods.

Now about this passage. I think it is always fascinating how God brings together - like the recent hullabaloo about an end-of-times prediction. Of course the world did not come to an end on the predicted date; the prophet now says his math was off. But Scripture says no man knows the hour or the day when Christ will return.

Still, as Smith says, "...death will forever close the door to our preparation for Judgment." Those are powerful words, especially considering that just as we do not know when Christ will return, we have no guarantee of a long human life. Just read the obituaries for a couple of days: teenagers drop dead of undiagnosed heart defects, innocent people die in the cross fire between rival gangs, sudden onset diabetes kills a twelve-year-old, and we won't even talk about the people who die as the result of impaired or distracted drivers. All of that to say, there are no do-overs or guarantees of three-score and ten.

For those of us who are believers, we have hope. We know our death will take us into the presence of the Father. We will see Jesus. We know also that "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. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward." I Cor.3: 13-14

So...I wonder how differently we might live if we truly lived, to borrow an old hymn's words, with eternity's values in view. And if we did so, 24/7, something much easier said than done.