Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow? What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do, but doesn’t do it, sins.
Commentary:
It is good to have goals, but goals will disappoint us if we leave God out of them. Do not make plans as though God does not exist, the future is in his hands. Christians make great claims but are often guilty of belying them with their actions. Professing to trust God and to being his people, they cling tightly to the world and its values. Possessing all the right answers, they contradict the gospel with their lives. It is not enough to talk the Christian faith, we must live it. What good is it if we claim to have faith but have no deeds? Genuine faith will inevitably produce good deeds.