” For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord. ” – 1 Cor. 4:4
John Piper makes a great point in light of current conditions. He said: “Let’s put it this way. People would often ask me before my cancer diagnosis, “How’s your health?” And I would answer, “Fine.” I don’t answer that way anymore. I say, “I feel fine.” There’s a difference. The day before I went for that annual prostate exam, I felt fine. The day after, I was told I had cancer. In other words, I was not fine. So even as I write these words, I do not know if I am fine. I feel fine. Way better than I deserve. For all I know, I have cancer right now. Or perhaps a blood clot. Or the coronavirus.
What’s the point? The point is this: the ultimate reason we ought not to say, “I am fine,” is that God alone knows and decides if you are fine—now. To say, “I am fine,” when you don’t know if you are fine, and you don’t control if you are fine, is like saying, “Tomorrow, I will go to Chicago and do business there,” when you have no idea if you will even be alive tomorrow, let alone doing business in Chicago.
Here’s what the Bible says about a sentence like that:”
” Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.” – James 4: 13-15
David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346
