Daily Encouragement: Day 222

From Handbook to Wisdom, Day 222

ONLY TWO DAYS ON
OUR CALENDAR

I know that my Redeemer lives
and that in the end He will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
whom I myself will see and behold with my own eyes and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
(Job 19:25–27)

I will judge nothing before the time,
until the Lord comes,
who will bring to light what is hidden in darkness
and will expose the motives of men’s hearts;
and then each one’s praise will come from God.
(1 Corinthians 4:5)

Only two things on earth will go into eternity—God’s Word and people. God has placed us here to grow in Christ and to reproduce the life of Christ in others. Each of us has specific opportunities to do this in our own spheres of influence, and as we abide in Christ and let His words abide in us, we will bear lasting fruit (John 15:7–8), and the living God will confirm the work of our hands.

The great saints along the way learned the wisdom of having only two days on their calendars: “today” and “that day” (the day they would be with the Lord). If we want a heart of wisdom, we should learn to live each today in light of that day. When we daily remind ourselves of the real purpose for our sojourn on earth, we will cultivate an eternal perspective that influences all our work and all our relationships. In 2 Corinthians 4:16–18, Paul summarized the vision that determined the course of his life:

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.