Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - One Day or Today? (Our 1000th Episode!) | The Writings | Ecclesiastes 12

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Have you been putting off your relationship with God for a future date? Is your life full of, "one day..." promises? Will that day ever truly come? In today's episode, Patrick celebrates our 1000th episode by sharing how Ecclesiastes 12 warns us against living for "one day" and encourages us to live today. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Ecclesiastes 12

Welcome to 10 Minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's true. This is 10-minute Bible Talk's 1,000th episode. And in God's Providence, it's landing on the perfect passage for reflection on what's come before. But before I get to the passage, let me just say thank you to everybody listening. The 10-minute Bible Talk family is incredible.

I love hearing your stories, and I'm just honestly honored, humbled, that God's used this podcast in your life and in the lives of other people just like you. I also want to thank Keith and Tanya, Jensen, Jeff, and Anna Lynn, and Ian, and the whole TMBT team for all the work you've done on this podcast over the years. No one but Jesus knows all the sweat and tears that have been poured into this podcast. When Keith and I launched 10-minute Bible Talks back in 2019, our goal was to get 1,000 downloads in the first year. We were just trying to help our church grow in its love of it.

of Jesus deep in its knowledge of the Bible. That's all we wanted to do. And so we knew that getting a thousand downloads in a year wasn't a really impressive number. In fact, it's not impressive at all. We just thought that if we could get 1,000 downloads, that would show that this was worth our time, that it was a good stewardship of kingdom resources. And here's the crazy thing. We hit that number in the first month, not the first year. And since then, God's continued to work in ways that far outstrip our talents and our abilities. Last year, 10-minute Bible Talks was downloaded 5.5 million times. We never imagined that, not even for a second. And that means that on over 5 million occasions last year, God's Word had the opportunity to impact real lives, real people who will live forever

and who I pray will live forever with Jesus. Since we launched the podcast, we've added three new hosts, Tanya and Jensen and Jeff. We've added a new host. Tanya and Jensen and Jeff. We've added a newsletter with Anna Lynn, and most importantly, we hope that we've added more Bible into your life personally. Because at the end of the day, that was our goal, to connect people to God and the Bible in the time it takes to get to work. So I know that this is an unusual episode to start that way, but I wanted to slow down and thank you and praise God. He's carried us through 1,000 episodes, and I pray that we've still got 10,000 more to do, which finally leads me to today's passage, Ecclesiastes 12. It's the capstone of the entire book of Ecclesiastes. It's the final chapter.

In many ways, it's trying to summarize everything it expects us to have learned up until this point. And so it starts with this bit of wisdom. Remember your creator in the days of your youth. Before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, I find no pleasure in them. Before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark, and the clouds return after the rain. As I read this, I find myself thinking of a habit I had in my younger days. I don't think I'm alone in this. It's what I used to call the one-day habit. It's the habit of seeing problems in your life and saying,

one day, I'll fix it. One day, I'll lose the weight. One day, I'll eat more healthy. One day, I won't look at porn anymore. One day, I'll pay off the credit card debt. One day, I'll get my drinking under control. One day, I'll... How do you fill in the blank?

If you're in your younger years, do you find yourself saying one day a lot? What do you promise yourself you'll do one day? Or if you're in your middle years or your older years, do you remember saying that? How'd it go? Did one day ever happen? You see, here's the truth. One day never comes until you say two day. Not one day I'll kick the habit, but two day I'll do it.

Not one day I'll serve others, but two day I'll do it. because if you ask anybody in their middle years, they'll tell you that one day, you just stop saying one day. Instead, you're just living the same way you've always lived, making all the same mistakes you've always made, but now there's less life in front of you. And you realize that one day may never come. So you're filled with sadness and disappointment about the choices that you've made. And then come the later years, when you've given up altogether, when you've accepted that

the person you imagined would be a real person one day? Well, that person never came into existence. You can't change what you are and you are what you are because you made yourself what you are. And you see, that's the great wisdom of Ecclesiastes. To realize that you cannot control the outcomes in life, you can't make good days come or bad days come, but you can stop living for a dream future. You can start saying, I'm not going to live for one day. I'll just live in two-day, whatever it brings. And how do you do that? Will you do that just as we read a moment ago by remembering your maker? And by starting to change your life before it's too late, before you pass one day and watch it wistfully disappear in your life's rearview window. No, remember God now. Before it's too late,

remember God now, even if it feels like it's too late, it's not. Let's read again what the author says. remember your creator in the days of your youth. And I'll add in your middle years, and even in your later years, because God's not done working with you. Remember your creator before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, I find no pleasure in them. Before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark and the clouds return after the rain, when the keepers of the house tremble and the strong men stoop, when the grinders cease because they are few, and those looking through the windows grow dim when the doors to the street are closed and the sound of the grinding fades. The author's telling us, before it's too late, before the time for you to act

comes to a close, before that day, remember God. Don't settle for one day, instead aim for two day. He continues, and then people go to their eternal home, and mourners go about the streets. Remember him. He's saying, remember God. Before the silver cold. is severed and the golden bowl is broken before the pitcher is shattered at the spring and the wheel broken at the well and the dust returns to the ground from once it came and the spirit returns to God who gave it. He's saying there's a day that's coming when all we hold dear, all we value will break, will shatter, will be severed. When the soul returns to God, the body to the earth and he's saying before that day comes, remember God. Seek after him today. Don't see after him today.

seek after him one day. And I want to say this is the perfect passage for our 1000th episode for at least two reasons. First of all, even five years after starting this, there are still things I thought I would change in my life one day that I haven't changed yet. And I'm reminded on this day that God's grace is the unchanging reality, not my sin. He can change me. He's carried me through the last five years, he will carry me forward into the next five. But this is not a one-day problem. It's time to say two-day. The second reason why this is the perfect passage for our 1,000th episode is that it reminds me of the power of two-day. We didn't let the podcast suffer as a one-day dream. It wasn't just a dream. It became a reality. We've remembered our creator and he has been so gracious to us in the interim.

There is no thousandth episode or thousandth anything in the world without people who, you know, who stopped settling for one day and start living in two day. What could God do through you if you stopped living for one day? What could God do through you if you started walking with him today?