A millennium may seem a long time for us — temporal beings — but not so for the eternal God, Who is familiar with the entirety of history while I struggle to remember what happened yesterday.
3 You return man to dust
and say, “Return, O children of man!”
4 For a thousand years in your sight
are but as yesterday when it is past,
or as a watch in the night.
5 You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning:
6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
in the evening it fades and withers.
7 For we are brought to an end by your anger;
by your wrath we are dismayed.
8 You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your presence.
9 For all our days pass away under your wrath;
we bring our years to an end like a sigh. (Psalm 90:3-9, ESV)
Our lives are only too brief and extinguish with a wheeze. Then we must give an account to our Maker, whose wrath we’ve incurred, but it isn’t as though we can’t also do good in life, or that God constantly observes us, waiting for us to trip up, like a disapproving father. It’s just that our good deeds cannot erase the bad and its consequence. We desperately need a righteousness outside of ourselves, one that Jesus lived and which becomes ours by faith.
Our Eternal God, We must one day, very soon, return to the dust from which You formed us. You remember with clarity all that has ever taken place, just as You know everything that will be. You are just and so you must punish even our deeds that miss the mark which no one else is aware of. Only by trusting in Your Son Jesus as our Lord and Saviour can we escape Your judgement. By Your Spirit, help us put away sin and walk in the good deeds You prepared in advance for us, as new creations in Christ (Ephesians 2:10).
Sparks 