Psalm 90:12 So teach us to number our days,That we may gain a heart of wisdom.
It seems like for the past three weeks in a row I’ve read in the news that the current oldest person in the world has died, and it’s not the same person over and over. It’s each successive “oldest person in the world.” So to be crowned the oldest person in the world isn’t so great, it’s like being voted most likely to die. But then none of us know the day we will die. Even those who have been diagnosed with a terminal disease don’t know the exact day they will die.
The oldest person in the world seems to always be somewhere around the 114 year mark. With improvements in the medical fields and increased knowledge about nutrition, people are living longer these days, though still the majority of people will only live to eighty or so. In 2005, the US Census Bureau estimated the country would have 114,000 centenarians by the year 2010. The actual number reported in the 2010 census was less than half that amount at exactly 53,364 people. Only 1 in every 6000 Americans will live to reach 100.
How many people die suddenly or unexpectedly every year? We don’t know because, well, they die unexpectedly. There are so many variables, but the truth be told, I’d say the majority of people who die, do so unexpectedly, or at least you would think so by the way they live their lives. Given the statistics that 1 out of every 1 person will die, and that it can happen at any time, you would think that what comes after would be on most people’s minds. But most people live as if they are eternal teenagers, living as if they cannot die.
In verse 12 of Psalm 90, Moses says that when we number our days, we gain a heart of wisdom. The book of Hebrews warns, “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.” There is, of course, a message here for those who have not received Jesus and that is this – make today the day you receive Jesus, because you may not have tomorrow. But there is also a message here for Christians, because God will reward us according to our works and there are many Christians that live as if their works will never be judged. The Bible says that judged works will either survive the testing and yield a reward in heaven or they will burn. Likewise, Christians will either find themselves rewarded in heaven or they will find themselves in heaven with no reward. Works that will survive the testing are those things that we did not take pride in. I think we will all be surprised by the works we will be rewarded for and those that will burn.
Leave a Reply