What does the scripture James 414 say?

Answer 1

James 4:14: "You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." This refers to people who build up treasures on earth, and worry about them, and whose lives are surrounded b the love of money and whose lives depend upon what will happen in the future because of the mmoney they have made. This is echoed in the verse preceding verse 14: Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town, stay there a year, conduct business, and make money." I once knew a person who was a terrible miser. He scrimped and saved all his life, never went on holiday, never enjoyed life, never gave to charity, he had one car (automobile) all his life that was falling apart and only got through the annual safety test beause he did all his own cut-price repairs. He even slit matches down the middle so that he could get 2 matches for the price of 1 - a 10p box of matches! He owned his own house -- but it was in such a state of disrepair that it was almost worthless. He saved and saved, as he said it, for a 'rainy day' so that he could have a very comfortable old age (despite in the UK all elderly people having a state pension). However, he never reached old age. He died through malnutrition relatively very young. And yet, when he died, he left a small fortune that went to the taxman and what little was left was split up among relatives that never even knew him. What a waste of an opportunity to do good with that fortune. Jesus said 'I come to bring you life and life in its fullness'. We are meant to enjoy life - not possibly materially but to enjoy life's experiences. In this verse we are reminded that we are "a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" - in other words, our time on earth is limited and that we have no control over whether we will die in 50 years' time or in the next minute, for we do not know what tomorrow will bring. But God does. And so, this verse tells us that we should trust in him more as he knows what will happpen to us tomorrow, and the next day and so on. We should trust in God rather than in bank interest, the lottery or the best horse in the 3.30 race if we are to live life in all its fullness.