This was written after I attended the funeral of a true friend.  Rest in peace B.D.

Within two weeks of my friend’s passing  two other dear old saints and quality friends were taken to hospital. One suffered a massive stroke; the other was very old and frail with some lung complication and they both passed soon afterwards. Obviously being among the sick and dying provided the environment for some quiet introspection. This lesson is not designed to depress you, but to remind us all of preciousness of each day and the wonder of our God.

Ecclesiastes 12 says things about old age and some of the woes it brings and we are reminded that this life is not to be taken for granted because we all live in the face of the enemy, death.  Today is the time to come to God the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ and pay homage to Him.
Ecc 12:1  Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, while the evil days do not come, nor the years draw near, when you shall say, I have no pleasure in them.

Moses wrote a Psalm in which he reflects on the transitory condition of this present life;
Psa 90:5  You carry them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep; in the morning they are like grass which grows up.
Psa 90:6  In the morning it sprouts and shoots up; in the evening it is cut down, and dries up.

Likewise James has a word of solemn warning to us those making plans years in advance:
Jam 4:13  Come now, those saying, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and spend a year there, and we will trade and will make a profit,
Jam 4:14  who do not know of the morrow. For what is your life? For it is a vapor, which appears for a little time, and then disappears.

Our life is like vapour, the morning mist which the warm sun removes in an hour or two.

In the light of the haste in which this life passes away we would do well to keep in mind some very solemn advice from some very wise Bible characters. Returning to Moses we find him saying this;
Psa 90:12  So teach us to number our days, so that we may bring a heart of wisdom.

Weigh each day is more the meaning here rather than simply guessing at how many we might have on this earth. The opportunity then is to apply our hearts to wisdom, rather than the accumulation of wealth and status. Please never forget the difference between the phrases, “live to work” and “work to live”. See 1Tim.6:8 and Hebs.13:5.

Our Lord was addressing his disciples in a dispensation quite different to the one we are living in now, but His words are poignant;
Mat 6:34  Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow; for tomorrow shall be anxious for its own things. Sufficient to the day is the evil of it.

Quite often our expectations of tomorrow do not square with what tomorrow actually brings and then we suffer disappointment, anxiety and failure, and why is this? Because we thought tomorrow into our own designs and tomorrow did not comply. As an older man I agree that living one day at a time is good value. Let us all face this, that if we spend today with our heads in tomorrow we might miss the wonderful opportunities today brings. The Apostle Paul gives this advice:
Eph 5:15  See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,
Eph 5:16  redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

The Word for redeeming is a market place term; it means to buy up, to redeem as in the sense to rescue. Time can be lost, so it must be seen as costly and we must be willing to pay the price for it, to treasure it because the days are evil. Perhaps no one will argue that today is more evil than Paul’s day. Fact is we must take care with each day at our disposal to understand what the will of the Lord is and to walk in love and light.

Returning to Moses’ Psalm we see the man comparing the vanity of people, the created, with the permanence of our God, the creator;
Psa 90:1  A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. O Jehovah, You have been our dwelling-place in all generations.
Psa 90:2  Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting You are God.
Psa 90:3  You turn man to dust, and say, Return, sons of men.
Psa 90:4  For a thousand years in Your sight are as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

We must never forget that time is part of this creation for in the beginning the evening and the morning were the first day. To try and comprehend our wonderful God who exists “from everlasting to everlasting” is perhaps a bit daunting for us who are currently fixed in time, how indeed can the finite fully comprehend the infinite.

But there is a four part time frame which involves our God and us and it is an intensely personal time frame. This involves the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and each one of us. This time frame goes a long way back and a long way forward, it starts way back before Genesis and goes way past the book of the Revelation.

After Israel were set aside at Acts 28, Paul was given the dispensation of the grace of God which we read about in Ephesians and Colossians. Here is the first thing Paul writes at the opening of this great current dispensation;
Eph 1:3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ;
Eph 1:4  according as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him

Paul is writing to the saints and faithful and it is saints and faithful who were chosen, not the unregenerate. Please note that God made His choice regarding those who were in fact “in Him”, that is “in Christ” as opposed to being “in Adam”. Our God, knowing who would respond, made a will regarding His children. His choice concerning us was made “before the foundation of the world”, and this goes way back before Abraham and the Nation of Israel, Cain and Abel, and Adam and Eve.

We have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places because, we were chosen in Christ to be holy and without blame “before Him”, and this phrase means, “in front of His face”.

This is the first part of the time frame. Each one of us who believe in Christ were chosen to be “holy and without blame” in front of God’s face. Way back in the past, God made a special choice regarding us to be in a special place.

The second part of the time frame is when our Saviour came to make it possible for us to be in that glorious condition described as being  “holy and without blame”. We note that our Saviour was also associated with “before the foundation of the world”:
1Pe 1:18  knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, silver or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers,
1Pe 1:19  but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot;
1Pe 1:20  indeed having been foreknown before the foundation of the world, but revealed in the last times for you,

Paul sums this up by saying;
Eph 1:7  In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace,

The second part of this time frame is also in the past, in the gospel era when our Lord was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Phils.2:8).

The third part of the time frame is now, the present. But it is a very intimate and special moment known to each one of us and we read of it in Ephesians;
Eph 1:13  in whom also you, hearing the Word of Truth, the gospel of our salvation, in whom also believing, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
Eph 1:14  who is the earnest of our inheritance,

At some time in the present, we believed in the Word of truth, the gospel of our salvation. Not the gospel of someone else’s salvation, the gospel of our salvation, this is very personal, and the time is known to you and the Lord. This time frame is not fixed, but covers the lives of all of God’s children thus chosen. It might have been AD 65, it might have been 1840, and it could be this year. God and the child of God know it and that is all that matters.

The fourth time frame is way beyond my capacity to explain, but here it is in raw from the Scriptures and it should not surprise us that it is found in Ephesians;
Eph 2:6  and has raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus,
Eph 2:7  so that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus

The ages to come will be the time when we are in all blessed reality, seated together in the heavenly places or the heavenlies. How far into the future this is, remains to be seen. God has declared we are seated in the heavenlies and we wait with patience for the day when our faith becomes sight. In the next chapter, paul says this;
Eph 3:20  Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,
Eph 3:21  to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, forever. Amen.

This phrase “throughout all ages” comes like this in the original;
Eph 3:21  to Him is the glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus, to all the generations of the age of the ages. Amen. (Young’s Literal).

We are part of this assembly which, in the heavenly places will bring glory o God through Christ Jesus. Our church is called the "body of Christ” and it is to God’s glory for a very long future time.

In the light of this incredible salvation time span, we should redeem the time, live each day to the glory of God as a mirror of this wonderful future and as Paul goes on to say;
Eph 4:1  I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the calling with which you are called,
Eph 4:2  with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love,

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