What Should I Do? (Part 1)

James 4:13-15

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Hi, I’m Pastor Marcus Nelson at Saint Paul’s North Mankato and the Beacon campus ministry. One question that we get a lot with our college students is, how do I know what I should do with my life? What is the Lord’s will for me? So over these next few devotions, I want to just take a little bit of a look at that and we’ll start in James chapter four.

So James talks about this a little bit starting in verse 13 as he says,

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:13-15)

So as we just start by thinking about this concept of what is, what is the Lord’s will, how should we make our plans? First, God’s word says, know yourself, remember who you are and check your attitude about that too. Because he says you don’t even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while. It seems like as people were making their plans, they were saying something that at face value doesn’t seem like there’s anything wrong with it. We’re making our plans. We’re going to spend a year here, we’re going to have our business, we’re going to make money. Nothing wrong with that, except that it seems like they are just leaving God out of the equation.

Do you ever find yourself doing that too? Just functionally living as a secular humanist, thinking that you are the be all and end all and that it’s your plans and really, really is God all that involved at all? Well, God wants us to check our hearts and think about that and remember that he is the one who guides all things in this world, and that we should go to him with our plans. And remember, if it’s the Lord’s will, we’ll do this or that.

As we make decisions, as we seek to follow God’s will. We have a Savior who has done this perfectly in our place. Jesus came and he looked at people, and the Bible says that he saw them, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. He went and he rescued and saved and helped them physically and ultimately took their sins and our sins to the cross.

So we remember who we are. We’re a mist. We’re just here for a little while. We are not God himself, so there’s no reason for us to act like that. But who is God? Well, he’s our Lord and Savior, who looks at us, who are just here for a little while, a little insignificant mist. And what is God’s will for us? Well, here’s one aspect of it God wants all people to be saved. God our Savior wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. He wants you not just to be this little mist that disappears far apart from him, but to be with him forever and ever.

So in some future devotions, we’ll look at what is the will of God. But for now, we check our attitude and remember who our Lord is.