Live Today, Today

God’s intention is for you to live one day at a time. That is why He created one day at a time, evaluated and approved it.

The reality is that you are not designed to live two days at a time. Yesterday is gone, over. And tomorrow is yet to come. Today is the only day that really matters in the equation of things. Since yesterday is gone, you must learn to close that chapter.

If you have really lived it well, yesterday should have helped you prepare for today. Unfortunately, if care is not taken, your yesterday can become a deterrent to the possibility of today. It can make you not to focus on what is truly significant to your destiny.

Although you can reflect on the past, you are not designed to live in it because doing so can and will create regrets for you, cause you to rest on your laurels, cause you to stay in your comfort zone, focus on your past, cause you to miss opportunities, prevent you from growing as you ought to, bring frustration, disappointment, and resentment, make you inactive, uninvolved, not thinking through things and set you back. It will also prevent you from moving ahead as you can. It can also stop you from seeing the big picture and the beauty that each day brings. Life can become blurry using the lens of the past and when lived from the perspective of the past.

You cannot move forward by looking at the past or to the past. When you live in yesterday, you will deprive yourself of the provisions and opportunities that are imbedded in today. You will be lost in navigating the potential that today can afford you. You will lose lots of friends that would have become helpers of your destiny and help make your life worth a living.

Living in the past is draining. It will drain your energy, joy, strength, and your ability to accurately see ahead. The truth is that you must see ahead to get ahead.

Moreover, you are not designed to live in the future as doing so will make you not to be present in the moment, prevent you from seeing opportunities, make you irrelevant, cause you to become lost to yourself, prevent you from paying attention to the reality around you, have realistic expectations, worry, get overwhelmed and become socially awkward. This is how many of us are living, we can’t wait to get through today so that we can get out of it. This is what is making some of us to live in a hurry. The downside of this is that we are not seeing the destiny helpers who have been assigned to help us in our journey. We are not happy and don’t tend to enjoy the moment.

Today is the only day that you must live. That means you must learn how to and start doing it. Today can help you to just be yourself and when fully lived well, will set you up for tomorrow. The source of our worry is that we want to live more than our fair share and we don’t believe that God can and will take care of us.

“God made each day for you to live in it in His own way and on His term.”

You must be present to live today today. And it must be done intentionally, courageously, unreservedly, committedly, passionately, and consistently. When lived well, once should be enough.
God wants you to live without regrets and for this to happen, you must do it daily. You must forget those things that are behind you.

God made each day for you to live in it in His own way and on His term. Every day is loaded with its benefits and not living each day as it ought to will stop you from seeing and partaking of those benefits.

Living today affords you the opportunity to learn and use what you are learning to your advantage. Today is the only one you have. So, use it and live it well. Use today as a stepping stone for tomorrow. That means you will have to use today to get ready for tomorrow so that as it comes, you are ready to make the most of it. If you are not living as you ought you will not make the most of life.

Unfortunately, because some of us don’t know how to live today, today. We are not using it to our benefit. In fact, some of us are misusing it, while others are not even using it at all to their benefit. What a waste!

The Bible emphasizes that there is time to live (Ecc 3: 2). That means you must start living today as you ought to so that you can live well tomorrow. Some of us are using today to complain, fight, stand as stumbling blocks to others, manufacture excuses, make trouble, stop the fire, and fix the mess that we created yesterday because we didn’t live it well And because of this, we tend to create another mess for tomorrow. Our prayer is that God will help us to live today today.

“Living today affords you the opportunity to learn and use what you are learning to your advantage.”

The best way to live is one day at a time. With all the changes around us, if you don’t live today and learn all there is about today in preparation for tomorrow, you will become irrelevant, unfit, and confused when tomorrow comes. If you hold on to how things worked yesterday, or how things were done, you will be unable to resolve the issues of today and be ready for tomorrow. If you fail to learn what you ought to learn today, you will be in deficit and at a disadvantage when tomorrow comes. Albert Einstein famously said: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” and I agree with him.

Every day is a building block for the next one. Yesterday should have been used to prepare for today and then today for tomorrow. Part of living is learning how to live today and finding creative ways to make life easier for tomorrow. When you are walking with God, no experience will be lost. He will find a way to help you use those experiences.

If you want to move forward fast, then live today well. Here are some things to consider…

Make choices that have eternal value. Living is best done when done decisively. Everything we do or not do, attend to or neglect, choose or reject is a function of our decisions. We have to pray for the wisdom to make choices that can add value to us and go ahead to make those decisions. We have to live decisively every day. One thing I have learned is that when we decide to say yes/no to one thing, we have invariably or unconsciously say no/yes to others.

Give your best today. Since today is the only day you have, you must learn to do whatever you do as to the Lord. Your best today will set you up for a better tomorrow. If you cut corners today, you will shortchange yourself tomorrow. If you have not optimized yourself today, you will sabotage tomorrow. I have also learned that the way you do one thing is the way you will eventually be doing everything. If you don’t learn to give your best today, tomorrow might not have any best for you when you get there. One thing that can help you give your best today is to live as if today is your last day on earth. I think the challenge some of us face is to tell ourselves that there will always be a tomorrow. The question is what if today is your last day, do you think you have given your best? Have you put your best effort forward? Have you given your all? Have you loved the way you can? Have you supported others as you can? Have you shone your light as you can? Have you done your best today knowing that that is all you have to give? Another way to give your best is to ask yourself: “if the only way to access tomorrow is if I have given my best today, will I qualify for another day with how I have lived today?”

Use today as a stepping stone for tomorrow. For many people, today is the last day but for others there is still another day. If you have the opportunity to live another day, then use today as a stepping stone for tomorrow. Learn today in preparation for tomorrow. Don’t procrastinate. Don’t hesitate. Start praying for your future today. Invest into your tomorrow in every dimension starting now. Remember, today is the tomorrow you envisaged and thought about yesterday. Be a reader today, use what you learn and tomorrow will be better off.

Forget yesterday: Yesterday is gone and there is no way you can pray for it to come back. It is gone for good. No matter what happened yesterday, don’t allow it to weigh you down or bog you down. Don’t be overwhelmed. Celebrate yesterday’s victory and don’t dwell on its misfortunes.

Live circumspectly: To maximize today, you must live and behave wisely. The Bible says you must see to it that you live as someone who is wise (Eph 5: 15-17). Be cautious and be prudent. Be discreet. Take calculated risks. Consider everything well before you venture into anything. Don’t allow anything to stop you.

Redeem the time: One of the things you must learn to do is to buy back time. Use today—its strength, resources, joy, grace, anointing, power—for what it is meant for. Secondly, to redeem the time, you must do God’s will every day. God made the day for you to do His will, you must know what it is and then receive grace to do it (Eph 5: 17). Jesus told us that He came from heaven to the earth to do God’s will (Jn 6: 38). He said what gave Him strength to face each day is doing what God wants (Jn 4: 34). This should be your commitment too. Thirdly, rest when you need to rest. It is good for you soul and body. Some of us are doing too much and we are not resting and this is costing us the ability to be effective. Rest while you can, it will help you make sound decisions, energized you, and enable you to do things well and faster.

Be a blessing: Jesus called you the light of the world and He wants you to shine (Mt 5: 16). Just like the sun shines daily, you as God’s child must shine your light by being a blessing to everyone around you. Shining your light is tantamount to doing good works by meeting the needs of everyone around you and serving your generation according to God’s will. Be an encourager, and extend God’s goodness, kindness, and mercy to everyone around you. It is also important to use what God has given you to help all the people that He will send your way every day.

Put today in the context of eternity: Today does not stand and should not be lived in isolation. It is not independent of tomorrow. It should be lived interdependent of it. God wants you to see the full picture so that you can gravitate toward eternity. Today is an accumulation of hours, minutes, seconds, and moments. Your destiny would not be fulfilled in a day but one day at a time. Everything is leading to the day of the Lord. Every day should be used as a transition toward the second coming of Jesus. His return should be in your view and you should use every day to wait eagerly for His return (Tit 2: 11-13). That means you should live as though Jesus can return at any time.

Use today as a set-up for tomorrow: Today matters. Tomorrow will matter as well when you get there. That is why you must use today to get ready for the future that God has for you. Be mindful of today and depend on the help and the leading of the Holy Spirit to prepare well for tomorrow. The Holy Spirit’s assignment is to show you things to come (Jn 6: 13). Whatever He shows you today is meant to help you live well today, prepare you and make you fit for tomorrow.

Do all to the glory of God: The Bible encourages us to do everything to the glory of God even the mundane things (1Cor 10: 31). We are to do everything in the name of the Lord as well (Col 3: 17). That means you must get His approval before you make any move. You want to ensure that anything you want to do is what He wants to attach His name to. Otherwise, you will be attacking and working against Him by your actions.

Practice gratitude: Appreciation is key to living well every day. It means we are grateful for the privilege to live. The Psalmist said that he will praise the Lord every day and at all times and as long as he lives (Ps 34: 1; 104: 33; 146: 2). We too must thank Him for everything He has done for us. We must be grateful because He is our God and Father. His will is for us to be thankful (1Thes 5: 18). Being grateful means that we don’t take His goodness and kindness for granted. We must learn to be grateful for everything we have received. We must be grateful because God is at work in us. We must also be grateful because we know that He knows what He is doing. Gratitude is one of the best attitudes to cultivate daily.

Be resilient: Every day is given to us to develop strength and learn to rely fully on the help of God so that we can stand the test of time. Living today should be with the understanding that God is the strength of our lives (Ps 27: 1). He is our stamina and will protect us from the evil that lurks around us. Resilience is the ability to handle life’s pressure well. It is bending but not breaking when the storms of life arise. It is the ability to live to fight another day. It is the ability to recover quickly from difficult conditions. Life is more livable when we do it one moment at a time. We can face the challenges that life throws at us when we are not too cumbersome with the loads of care. Daily living will help us to build the resilience we need to survive and thrive despite the attack of the enemy.

Live by Faith: Jesus told us that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word which proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord (Mt 4: 4). This proceeding word is what will help us to live well every day. It is what will help us develop our faith and strengthen us to live one day at a time. We are called as God’s people—just and righteous—to live by faith (Rom 1: 17). It is God’s recommended way to live. Living any other way is outside His best for us. Living by faith helps us to know that nothing will be impossible for us. It will help us be effective and focused on what God can do for us, in us, with us, and through us.

Take the time to smell the roses: It is possible to be busy living without actually enjoying the beauty embedded in each day. We can be so occupied with the desire to accomplish something worthwhile that we don’t slow down to enjoy the process and the people around us. We can be so busy with taking care of other things that we don’t stop to do self-care. If you want to live today and make the most of it, you must take the time to enjoy it. Laugh, smile, care, breathe, and take the time out to experience and acknowledge the beauty that you see around you. Do things you enjoy. Let the wonders of God’s earth speak to you. Experience its freshness. Experience love as much as you express it.

Have a goal daily: Some of us are just drifting along in life without being intentional about it. We struggle to make it count by fulfilling our dream and purpose. We must learn to break down our journey into sizable and achievable goals and start doing something meaningful with our lives.

Pray: Daily prayer is a way to acknowledge God’s sovereignty in all your affairs (Pro 3: 5-7). It is a way to commune with Him and seek His face. We are encouraged to pray without season (1Thes 5: 17). That means you must learn to pray right at the beginning of the day, at the end, and in between. Prayer is a means of life connection. You can pray alone or with other people. I have realized that to complain is human, to pray is divine. Almost everything we complain about, we can pray about. We can pray the prayer of thanksgiving, supplication, and agreement as we make our requests known to God. We can pray short or long prayers. We can pray anywhere we find ourselves. We can pray for ourselves and others, especially our leaders. The result of praying is that we will experience God’s peace, have our prayer answered and needs met, not fall into temptation, and lead a quiet life. The temptation we face is not to pray and the only way to overcome it is to pray. Prayer is one thing you learn to do by doing it. You will get better at praying by doing it regularly, constantly, daily, and consistently.

As we continue into this year, God is calling every one of us to live today, today. This is how we can live a simplified and uncomplicated life. This is how we can live free of every entanglement around us. This is how we can make the most of this year.

I pray for the patience that we need. I pray that God will help us to look to Him and acknowledge Him in all our ways. I pray that we will follow His instruction as He guides us toward the destiny He has for us. I pray that He will empower us to live well in the moment. I pray that He will help us to live with eternity in mind. I pray that we will live to fulfill God’s purpose in the land of the living in Jesus’ name. Amen!