You do not have to fear standing before God in judgment if you have made a practice of confessing your sins and standing before the judgment seat of Christ every Lord’s Day: hearing his pardon, receiving his absolution, and being comforted by the knowledge of his love and grace. You will not be idolatrously wed to this present world if you have made it a habit to wholeheartedly give yourself to the Lord’s kingdom on the Lord’s Day week after week.

Tomorrow is the Lord’s Day. We do not know from one day to the next what lies in store for us. Proverbs teaches us to remember that: A man’s heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps (16:9), and there are many plans in a man’s heart, nevertheless the LORD’s counsel—that will stand (19:21). Our life is but a vapor that appears for a time and then vanishes away (Jas. 4:14). Moreover, the LORD knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust (Ps. 103:14).

You might expect that our inescapable frailty and and certain mortality would be regularly at the forefront of our minds, but for most people this is not so. Many people never think of their own death or the likelihood that any number of factors—whether pleasant or painful—may intrude to change the plans we made for our future. While this knowledge perhaps should be common to all men, it is a particular mark of God’s saints. If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that (Jas. 4:15). Whereas worldlings will say: Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die! The believer sees the same inevitability as a reason for piety and obedience rather than self-indulgence. “You only live once” means very different things to those who serve Christ as opposed to those who live to serve only themselves.

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