Life as a Vapor

You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. James 4:14

John Piper writes,

The Son of God is not a vapor. He is solid reality, with no beginning and no ending. His name is Jesus Christ. He is the same yesterday and today and forever. He looked His disciples in the eye and said without irony or exaggeration, “Before Abraham was, I Am.”

But what about us? Once we were not, and now we exist? Humans come into being. For how long? Forever. Either in heaven or in hell. There is no going out of existence. For that would not be joy for those who love God nor punishment for those who don’t.

You exist forever. There is no use protesting that you did not ask to exist and would like not to. That is not an option. You and God are both in the universe to stay- either as friends on His terms, or enemies. Which it will be is proven in this life. And this life is a vapor. Two seconds, and we will be gone- to heaven or to hell. “As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone” (Psalm 103:15-16).

Jesus Christ came into this world- this fleeting, fallen, fickle world- and did the greatest thing that will ever be done. As the perfect Son of God, He died in our place, absorbed the wrath of God, paid the penalty for sin, provided the righteousness of the law, and rose invincible from the dead- all in a vapor’s life of thirty-three years. Because of that, we have something firm to grasp. “Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:7-8). The gospel is firm and lasts forever.

( http://www.desiringgod.org/Store/Books/ByTopic/All/480_Life_as_a_Vapor/ )