What if today was the last day of your life? Would you be ready to die? Have you done all you wanted to do for God’s Kingdom? How would those closest to you remember how you lived concerning Jesus? All of us will face the last day of our life at some point. No one escapes a trip to the grave. Knowing this, we must live each day with an effort to finish well.
Perhaps today will be our last; perhaps it won’t. None of us know when our lives will end. We cannot live as if that day will not come because we know it will. It is only the arrogant who pretend they are immortal, and only the faithful who truly will be.
We live as if we will always have tomorrow. Intellectually we know we have no guarantee, but we live as if we do. There is a lack of urgency in our lives. If you knew today was the last day of your life, I am certain you would do some things other than those you normally do. You would be a little kinder and show a bit more love to those around you. I’ll bet you’d even complete a few of those projects you’ve been putting off for a while. I don’t know what your priorities would be, but I know they would differ from what they normally are.
While you may have trouble seeing the need to live as if this were the last day of your life, here’s a sobering thought: today may be the last day of life for someone you encounter. There are billions of people around the world who do not know Jesus, and if today is the last day of their lives, they will die without ever knowing His love and mercy. Worse, they will face an eternity separated from His presence. If today is the last day of their life, today will be their last opportunity to accept Jesus as their Lord. They estimate that 150,000 people die every day on our planet. Most did not wake up thinking this would be the last day of their lives. Most will die without knowing Jesus.
With these facts in mind, followers of Jesus must live with urgency. There is too much at stake to live in a laissez-faire manner. Today may be the only shot we have at telling someone about the hope we have in Christ. As Mark Cahill has profoundly said, “The one thing you can’t do in Heaven is help lead someone to Christ”. When we’re gone, we lose all opportunity to tell someone about Jesus. We dare not waste a moment of our lives. The end is coming for us all and it should break our hearts to know some will die without Him. It should break our hearts we did not do more to reflect His glory in our lives. Today may be the last day of your life. Are you living it in such a way that you will be satisfied when it ends?