Job 14:10-12

10 But man [geber] dieth [muwth], and wasteth away [chalash]: yea, man ['adam] giveth up the ghost [gava`], and where is he?

11 As the waters [mayim] fail ['azal] from the sea [yam], and the flood [nahar] decayeth [charab] and drieth up [yabesh]:

12 So man ['iysh] lieth down [shakab], and riseth [quwm] not: till the heavens [shamayim] be no more [biltiy], they shall not awake [quwts], nor be raised out [`uwr] of their sleep [shehah]. KJV-Interlinear

10 'But man dies and lies prostrate. Man expires, and where is he? 11 'As water evaporates from the sea, And a river becomes parched and dried up, 12 So man lies down and does not rise. Until the heavens be no more, He will not awake nor be aroused out of his sleep. NASB

You have but one life to live in this world. Don't mess it up.

Your life now, will determine your entire eternal future. Since eternity will consist of billions of trillions of gazillions of years and more, then our lifespan now, of perhaps several decades, is no match for the unlimited numbers of years we will spend in eternity.

So you have two lives, as it were. Your life now, and your life in eternity. Which should you be concerned with?

In the grand eternal timeline, your life now is but a blink. Just as those past days and months and even years of your present life are brief and gone forever. If you have a few years on you now, then where did those past years go? The seemed to pass by slowly as we lived them, but once they are behind us, they seem to have simply blinked by.

Can we relive them? Can we get those past years back? Can we have do-overs? No. Past is past. Gone is gone. Done is done.

All you can do is remember and perhaps learn, but to return to your former days, will never happen.

And such is life, as Job points out here.

Man lives but once, and when he dies, he vanishes from this world forever. Man cannot and will not, and will never return to this former earthly life, to live his life over again. No reincarnation. No coming back from the dead to this physical life.

Job is not speaking of a resurrection. That is a different subject, and a different discussion. Job is referring to this life as we know it, and the impossibility of ever coming back to live ones life over again.

In other words, one life, one chance, no second chances once this life is over.

I saw a show on the Science Channel once, which presented a study on rain. The summary was that any given rain drop, will evaporate, form a cloud, rain somewhere, run down the rivers and such back to the sea or to lakes, or to somewhere, then travel around the oceans for decades before it evaporates again to rain again, and fall somewhere else. It was an interesting study.

Anyway, Job uses this same symbolism of flooding rivers, forming flood plains, standing puddles and ponds and such, and when they dry up, that water is gone forever, more or less.

Sure the next rainy season will bring floods and ponds and puddles, but those raindrops will not be the same raindrops that were there before.

Man lives a life and dies. Man is replaced by other people. People exist and when one dies another comes along, but that other person is not the same as the former. They are different people.

The two words used here for man, 'geber,' and 'adam,' make reference to the mighty man, the tough, the physical, the earthly, or the man of dust.

We come from the dust, and no matter what our life or physical condition may be while living this life, once we expire from this life, there is no way in which we will ever come back to recover our former dust.

As Job states, 'Until the heavens be no more.' We would probably say, 'Until hell freezes over.' This is a figure of speech, which means, 'It will never happen.'

And so it is with our individual life. We are born into this world and we will live for a moment, for a day, for a decade, or for a century perhaps. But no matter how long or short our life is, no matter who we are, no matter what we are, no matter what our worldly accomplishments, we are all appointed a day of our death.

Once that occurs, then we cannot and will not ever come back to this life of dust.

The soul leaves the body, and the body disintegrates back into the dust totally worthless and totally unusable.

Therefore, you have but one opportunity to advance in your spiritual life and make something out of your otherwise useless life. For every day that you disregard God, Christ, and Bible doctrine, you are losing out on the investment of your entire eternal lifetime.

The full reality of ones life significance will not occur until after death. Too late to make any changes.

So God gives us all an opportunity to discover and pursue our spiritual life now while we are still breathing in this world. The wise person will recognize this opportunity. The fool will not.

Which are you?

Now is the time to post a prayer.