Is This Your Last Day?

On the day of your death, do you think you will wake up knowing that it is your last day? No matter how much we try to extend our lives with regular exercise, a nutritious diet, and the best medical care,  our “last day” will still come, and often without warning. How many people, minutes before a fatal crash, can even imagine what the moments ahead will contain? And of those who stare death in the face for a second or two before it comes, how many do you suppose have time to turn their thoughts to God for salvation? Are they not rather in extreme terror, or suffering, frantically seeking a way out of calamity, desperately trying to escape destruction?

Tragedy most often strikes unexpectedly, without warning. It comes as a shock, abruptly cutting off pleasure and comfort, and shatters the normal course of life. “Like fish taken in a cruel net, like birds caught in a snare, so the sons of men are snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them” (Ecclesiastes 9:12). Tragedy “comes suddenly, in an instant” (Isaiah 30:13).

God in His mercy has not left us without warning concerning our eternal destiny, and pleads for sinners to repent. “Turn at my rebuke; surely I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you” (Proverbs 1:23). “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 4:7).

You only live today. The past is gone, and the future is unknown, making the present the only time you are sure to have. If you are ever to turn to God from your sin it will not be tomorrow, for tomorrow never comes. Now is the only time you have! “Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). “Do not boast about tomorrow, For you do not know what a day may bring forth” (Proverbs 27:1).

Do you imagine that one day you will wake up and say, “Today is the day I die. I will now get right with God”? No, you wake up each day going about your normal affairs, never considering the end of life. It is a dangerous thing to put off the question of your responsibility for your sins. There is “a time to be born, and a time to die” (Ecclesiastes 3:2). “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many” (Hebrews 9:27,28). You will stand before God!

God has patiently given you time, but He is calling you to repentance now. Will you put Him off? There is a time when it will be too late, for God has said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever” (Genesis 6:3). “Once the Master of the house has … shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open for us,’ and He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know you’ ” (Luke 13:25).

Dear reader, this may be the last day that you have to accept God’s free, loving offer of forgiveness and salvation. Repent of your sins to Jesus Christ who died for you and is risen again. Trust Him to save your soul. Do it now, before it is too late! “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
(John 3:16-18). —Ron Melick

Source: http://www.mwtb.org