This is the Day the LORD Has Made

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”

Ephesians 5:15, 16

Dear friends,

By the time you read this, I already know it’s too late. Too late for me to catch you before you walk out that door and start the day. If the Lord wills and we both have another tomorrow, maybe you can begin the day remembering this bit of encouragement before you grab that doorknob. There is a small moment every morning that we may not notice. We grab the keys, phone, maybe a jacket, put our hand on the door, and then out into the day. Stop right there. Back up. I have been turning that image over in my head lately, and thinking about the two very different people in this world standing at that door. One is truly alive in Christ, the other is dead.

Now, I love classical literature. Sit me down over coffee with Virgil or Aristotle and I will lose the afternoon. But those old pagans had a phrase for the morning: Carpe diem. Seize the day.

Horace wrote it two thousand years ago, and the world has quoted him ever since, without knowing it is quoting a man whose god is self and his lust is selfish ambition. The entire line is just cold. Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero. Seize the day, trusting tomorrow as little as you can. Get all you can, can all you can get and sit on the can. That is carpe diem at the root: not a toast to life but a flinch from its end. We have kept the phrase and forgotten the fear behind the saying of a spiritually dead man who had no hope in this life or the next. Worse, many today say it to their spouse, children, or colleagues with a smile on their face! But the fear is still doing the work. It is why the world’s way of seizing a day is the manifestation of selfish ambition, the original sin of Satan before being cast out of heaven. It is also the distinguishing mark that divides the two kinds of people in this world. Worshipers of God and worshipers of self.

The Holy Spirit taught the Apostle Paul all about this philosophy. “Making the best use of the time,” he writes, “because the days are evil.” Literally, the Greek word in that first phrase, exagorazó, means to buy up, rescue from loss, to redeem, and Paul draws the opposite conclusion of Horace and the other pagan knuckleheads. While Horace says spend the day on selfish ambition, which is biblically demonic, Paul looks at the same day and says purchase and use it for God. That is Christ-like.

Now what makes a man able to do that? Before you walk out that door, know that it’s not willpower. You cannot grit your teeth into that kind of spiritual freedom for the day. But this biblical truth can: The true believer in Christ Jesus has already died. If you are in Christ, you have died, Paul says, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Col. 3:3. A man who has already died cannot run out of days because he is not seizing that day off of a shrinking pile. You are receiving it from your Father in heaven who cares much for you.

So, open the door now and reflect on what that does to a morning. The lost man, without hope in this world or the next, clutches his day because it’s all he has. The Christian is the man on the street actually free to spend a day, to pour it out on people who can’t pay him back, because he is not drawing down an account. Everything he has, including the day, has been an undeserved gift. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Gal. 2:20. You, a dead man raised, have nothing to hoard.

So the phrase can stay, if we replace Horace’s meaning with Paul’s teaching. Just be careful when you decide to ‘encourage’ someone with it!

This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Ps. 118:24.

From the Shelf

Seriously, you can never have enough good books. Here’s a good one to have around the next time you lose electricity, maybe even sooner: Sinclair Ferguson’s In Christ Alone returns to the one thing the New Testament says about us more than almost any other, that the believer is in Christ, and he never lets that truth become abstract. He writes for us at the front door, keys in hand, told we are united to Christ but unable to feel what that should change. The chapters are short. Read one a morning. And bring your highlighters. You’ll use them. 🙂

A Pastoral Word

I’m sure there’s more to be said here, but I think I’ve said the gist. I pray that we all may learn to daily live in a sense of eternity and not like those who have nothing to live for but selfish ambition. Tomorrow, Lord willing, you will stand at your own door with keys in your hand. Don’t leave the house like a Horace. You are being handed a day, by the Father, with your truest life already safe and out of reach. So go and spend it wisely.

In His service,

Joel