p. 19 | What Is Your Life?

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 17, 1861

What Is Your Life?

"For what is your life?" James iv., 14.

LIFE is but a vapor, soon gone. It is but a tale, soon told. It is like the swift ship, it soon sails by. And yet how much depends on life, on one life! In life we sow; after death we reap. In life we plant; after death we gather the fruits. Now, if ever, our hearts must be changed. Now, if ever, our sins must be pardoned. Now, if ever, our natures must be sanctified and made meet for heaven. During life, mercy reigns. During life, the gospel invites us to come to Jesus and be saved. During life, God waits to be gracious, and is willing to show mercy unto us. But, as life is so brief and so uncertain, and as eternity is so solemn, and may be so near, it becomes us to seize the present moment, and at once make our calling and election sure. If on any point we should seek certainty, and be determined never to rest satisfied without it, it should be on this—the salvation of the soul. We ought not to eat with pleasure, or sleep with comfort, except we know that we are saved in the Lord, with an everlasting salvation. If the thread of life should suddenly break, if the lamp of life should be unexpectedly extinguished, and if our souls are not saved, how fearful would be the consequences! Let us then make sure work for eternity, and give all diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end. Certainty may be obtained. Pardon may be enjoyed. The witness of the Spirit may be acquired. You may be sealed unto the day of redemption. Then trifle not, delay not, but at once seek, and seek until you obtain, the kingdom of God, which is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

"Man cometh forth as a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not." Job xiv, 2.