At the time of creation, God determined the times and seasons of operation in the world when He placed the sun and moon as lights in the sky. In Gen 1:14 we read:
And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to divide between the day and the night. And let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years.
As human beings, we are creatures of time and operate within it. The Psalmist in 31:15 recognizing this said to God, ‘My times are in Your hand…’
God on the other hand operates outside of time and is not controlled by it. The Bible writers recognised this fact and acknowledge in Ps. 90:4 and 2 Pet. 3:8 that with God one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. For the human mind this is not easy to comprehend, making us understand why He says in Is. 55:8, 9 that:
“My thoughts,” says the LORD, “are not like yours, and my ways are different from yours.
As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways and thoughts above yours..”
Because times and seasons are in His hands and He’s the one Who knows the end from the beginning – Is. 46:10, we need to come to terms with the fact that we do not have control over the number of our days. The human lifespan however long, is but a dot on His eternal timescale!
When our time on this earth is ended, the soul doesn’t die but lives forever! God has made us as eternal beings and desires that we would live forever with Him. The belief that death is the end and one passes into nothingness goes against Biblical teaching. God’s word – the Bible, teaches that once life is over, every one of us will face His judgment. In Acts 17:31 and Heb. 9:27 we read the following:
Because He has appointed a day in which He is going to judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom He appointed, having given proof to all by raising Him from the dead.
And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.
God gives us the choice of either spending eternity with Him or not. He doesn’t force this choice on anyone, although in the end, each of us will have to live with the consequences of our choice! It will be great rejoicing for those who like Paul in 2 Tim. 4:7, 8 can sincerely say that:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.
Now there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that Day; and not to me only, but also to all those who love His appearing.
We have no way of knowing how long our time here on earth is, but God does. The most important decision that we could ever make is to hand over the reins of our lives to the One Who holds the times and seasons in His hands. This secures our eternal destiny and ensures that we spend eternity with Him.
Prayer
Father, please help each of us to wisely make the choice of handing over the reins of our lives to You so as to ensure that we spend eternity with You rather than in the place of eternal punishment forever. In Jesus’ name, Amen.