Get straight before its too late.

Over the past two weeks there's been something that's been hitting me really hard that I wish people around in my age group would realize: We are NOT promised tomorrow! In the past week and a half one person that I graduated with died in a car wreck, one of my good friends found out that a tumor he's had is malignant and someone half of my age, a fourth grader at Boiling Springs died. Probably what hit me the hardest was when I found out that the guy I graduated with died. He had just graduated from Barber School and was planning on opening up his own shop.
This brings me to my first scripture. James 4:13-17 says, "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.' Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin."

After reading this a couple times over, what it speaks out to me is that no matter how short life can be, it is a gift. And since we were given this gift we need to use it to it's full potential. And it's full potential is doing the good works and the will that God calls us to do, which brings me to another part of scripture I'll talk about in a minute. I can not stress enough how important it is with having a growing relationship with God or even have one for that matter. And to act like we have one. I heard someone say the other day, "Why should we not act up, we have the rest of our lives to be good." As I heard that I thought to myself, is this girl stupid? How long is the rest of your life? Again, we are NOT promised tomorrow.

This brings me to the get straight part of this blog. 1 Corinthians 7:17 says, "However that may be, let each of you lead the life the Lord has assigned, to which God called you. This is my rule in all the churches." Reading this you have to see that we weren't given this life to live on our own. Even though we were given free will we were still put on the Earth to do God's work and to glorify him. Sometimes it just kills me when I look around and see some of the people I've cared about so much in my life running around like fools. Remember the best way to lead is by example. Like my momma always said we need to act like we got some raisin's.

Another piece of scripture that goes along with the concept of getting straight before it's too late is 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11,
"Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say,'There is peace and security,' then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and sober; for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing."

Reading this piece of scripture is almost relaxing. Especially the last verse because it helps me to realize exactly how much encouragement I get from people around me. And it acts as a reminder for me too, that I should be encouraging others as well. Sometimes it's hard for the people around my age with what the world is telling you to do and what your friends are doing and the changes going on in yourself but for the ones out there reading this if you ever need encouragement don't be afraid to come to me. If I can't act as an encouragement I know a lot of people that will.

The last piece of scripture I'm gonna share will deal with why it is so important to get your life straight. I personally believe that in order to get to Heaven we as Christians will have to do more then just proclaim that we know the Lord. We will have to show it and people will be able to see the Lord by looking at us. James 2:14-22 says, "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,' and yet you do not suppy their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. But someone will say, 'You have faith and I have works.' Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe-and shudder. Do you wnat to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is barren? Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that fiath was active along with his works, and fiath was brought to completion by the works."

If that does not make you understand that we need to start living straight then I don't know what will. I know that I've been all over the Bible in this one but a lot of these tied together and I hope that I made the point I was trying to get across easy to understand. If you didn't understand much of it I'll give you two main things that you should get from this, we are not promised tomorrow or we are not guranteed anything in the future, and I want you to ask yourself are you absolutely, positively, without a shadow of a doubt sure of where you are going after you die? Are you sure that from your actions and works that you will go to heaven after reading this? Cause remember faith without good works, is dead.