I suppose I should not be so harsh to those of my generation on Facebook. Fear is a powerful taskmaster, especially to those who do not know their end. Quick fact: you're going to die. That realization never seems to hit people does it? That the world goes on without them in it.

Grab all the money like Elon and his 225 billion...
Gain all the political power of the evil men...
Flutter all for the fame of the world...

Their end is the same: before the judgment throne to determine the extent of the wrath of God for the dark eternity before them. So shall I be there, but covered by what Jesus did for me—AND I'm adopted as an heir. (!!!)

I look at the Social Security Actuarial Life Table and it projects that at 45, there are 32 years in the bucket for me. But there's no guarantee of that! Frankly, what does that neat, black-and-white table know? Again, my parents died at 66 and 64 with their teams of doctors who shoved them into the afterlife.

But, THAT is the temporal side of me that is a little god. I take a step back. They died exactly as it was foreordained. And as those who submitted to the lordship of Jesus and did neither call Him a liar nor a lunatic, I shall join my parents in time (looking forward to the coffee). I hear that the guy frying the fish is good—does He do sushi? (John 21:9-14) Setting aside that future time together, I take comfort in this:

Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

Psalm 139:16 (ESV)

My days were numbered before I even started counting.

So what do we do with this?

I wrote some really good stuff back in January. And I know how I could: daily, I was mining Scripture, reading the same chapters day-after-day, Romans 1-8 for the month of January. It slipped my mind that I wrote How Did Facebook Change Me After Three Weeks?. Reading it makes me lament that I gave up this approach to the Bible. How would 2023 have landed if I held fast? Ahh, but it's not over yet...

Again, somewhere along the way, I accepted less. Far less.

YouTube Link

Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.

...800 years later...

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

Isaiah 46:3-4 and John 10:27-29

John Piper's Take

Why are you a Christian when you wake up in the morning and when you go to bed at night? Christ is real and precious and you pray and you enjoy fellowship—why should it be that way when you wake up in the morning?

Our emotions are fickle, our will goes this way and that way, we change our opinions, and we get blown around by events. Why shouldn't you wake up an unbeliever? Why don't you think, "That's boring. Why did I ever buy into that? That was stupid?" Why not? And there is one answer:

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling...be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 1:24-25)

There's only one answer. It isn't automatic, like, "I prayed my prayer and I believe in eternal security therefore I can never be lost, period." That's not the way it works. He keeps you.

-John Piper, Perseverance of the Saints