Does God determine how long you live?

Psalm 139:16 ESV

"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."

Sin can cut a person's life short.

"And he made from one man every race of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted epochs and the fixed boundaries of the places where they would live;” (Acts 17:26)

Just because He knows it does not mean He determines every stroke of our toothbrush, Every bit of pollen that makes you sneeze, how loud, forceful, and duration. He will intervene should we ask, this is the purpose of prayer. We have a good deal of latitude as unbelievers and also in Christ.

God knows but part of your life is based on your free will. Hezekiah got 15 extra years when he repented. Sin can take away life, there is even a sin unto death. More importantly there are ways prolong your life. Honoring your father and mother, following God's word. Here I found that God often repeated that certain bible figures lived a full life. Scriptures To Live a Long Life

many might overlook this but I tim 4:8 even says: For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

Deuteronomy 4:40 – “So you shall keep His statutes and His commandments which I am giving you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may live long on the land which the LORD your God is giving you for all time.”

Deuteronomy 34:7 – Although Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died, his eye was not dim, nor his vigor abated.

seeker2122 said:

so is this proof that we do not determine how long we live? I can live a healthy life but die young of sickness or I can live an unhealthy life and live until I'm 118? We basically don't have a say in how long or how short we live? It's already determined for us regardless of the choices we make right now? Or maybe God already knew all the choices we were going to make before we were formed therefore he knew exactly how long we'd live or not live and just made it sound like he determined / appointed us the specific length?

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I think it's both - in a mysterious way that we don't understand. Our free will choices, including prolonging our lives through healthy living or blessings received, are still within the confines of His pre-determined will.

And then there are the instances where our days here end no matter how much we strive to extend them. An example would be the musician Keith Green - in my opinion a valuable and talented servant of God with a vital ministry. Nevertheless, God allowed him to die in a plane crash. He was still young and probably in good health.

So I just leave the timing in the hands of the Lord, and don't overly fret over whether I'm doing my part. To adopt an attitude Keith expresses in one of his songs:

"Just keep doing your best
Pray that it's blessed
Jesus takes care of the rest."

Matthew 6:27 NIV

"Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"

The bible says, 'I don't want the death who dies, repent and you will live'
So God is saying people to repent, and also promised long life to those who respect their parents, sometimes God wanted to do things with people and they didn't want/allowed, those actions could end up in a shortened life as consequences.
God also prolonged the life of that king, the prophet told him he would die, he prayed to God and was granted more years of life.

So our decisions may end up with consequences.

d taylor said:

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Sin can cut a person's life short.

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I'm surprised at that. Why would you say that?

returntosender said:

I'm surprised at that. Why would you say that?

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Just look at Ananias and Sapphira or some of the believers that were getting drunk at the Lords Supper Remembrance (many sleep) that means they have died.

Or in contemporary times, drug, alcoholic, over weight, etc.. has caused many an early death.

seeker2122 said:

Yes, God is all sovereign. He is in full control and nothing happens or can happen without his knowing.
However, this doesn't necessarily means he "causes" all things to happen and not happen does it?

I know in Scripture it said that God numbers the hairs on my head and so he has also numbered my days,
but does this actually mean He determines exactly when you will die or how long you will live?

Again, is this to say that we have no say in our own mortality? In other words, if God does determine to exact
year, month, day, hour, and second when you will expire on this earth, then if you live an unhealthy lifestyle,
you can't change the date God chose for you to expire? If I wanted to live healthier and did everything in my
ability to live a healthy long life, it won't matter because God has already determined you will expire on "X" date?

So if God determines this, then what point is there to live wisely or recklessly, you will still live long or still live short
depending on what God has already determined for you.

OR

Does God adjust the plan mid-flight based on your choices and how you live? So maybe God intended someone to live
95 years but since you decided to be reckless and have bad habits, God decided you should expire at age 35 in some accident
or unfortunate event due to your reckless ways? Isn't that still us who determines how long or short we live? Aren't we a major
factor or agent in the causation of something happening and not happening or do we have no say in the result because God
determines it?

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I have a friend who has stag four cancer. They told her she had two years to live and they began preparing her for the inevitable. She ignored them. She said she wasn’t going to worry about it. It’s been 15 years and she says “I’ll die when the Lord deems that it’s my time and not a day sooner “
When this first started they thought she was in denial and sent her to counseling

d taylor said:

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Just look at Ananias and Sapphira or some of the believers that were getting drunk at the Lords Supper Remembrance (many sleep) that means they have died.

Or in contemporary times, drug, alcoholic, over weight, etc.. has caused many an early death.

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I see what you mean. I thought you meant God takes their lives.

I believe that God is in full control but we experience ourselves to control things as much as we do.

And He can have us do things to be healthy. But I know that still I could die, at any time . . . except He has planned exactly when and how I will.

What is working through it all is how God is accomplishing His main purpose, which is to have many children who are like Jesus and who love like Jesus > Romans 8:29. This, maybe we could say, is the centerpiece of all: all fits somehow with this overall purpose.

He is able to use any good and any evil to help produce many children who are conformed to the image of Jesus. Each human is involved in this, somehow. We have people ministering us into the image of Jesus. And we have people who are vessels of evil helping to carry Satan's filth to hell so it will be away from God's children during eternity.

Romans 9:21

There is a reason why God already knows how things will develop. It could be like this > you can not know what you will be doing at twelve o'clock tomorrow, unless you are in perfect control of yourself and everything and every person. You can plan and intend and guess, yes. But.

And whatever God's word says to do is necessary. He will use what He says to do. So, yes He does want us to pray and eat right. This is included in God blessing. He has us sharing with Him in His good that He controls; He shares with us how He is controlling, so we even do, at times, know what we will do.

In the case where we abuse our selves such as over eating, etc things that we do that results in our death we are responsible for our demise.

returntosender said:

I see what you mean. I thought you meant God takes their lives.

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God can if that is what God chooses to do, just like God did to Ananias and Sapphira, they dropped dead on the spot.

So if God determines this, then what point is there to live wisely or recklessly, you will still live long or still live short depending on what God has already determined for you.

Why would you want to be foolish or live recklessly? What's the attraction?

When I was a chikd my aunt told me something I've never forgotten. She said, little girl get wisdom. You don't have experience everything yourself. Learn from other people's mistakes. And I took her advice and sought lessons in everything I read, heard, watched, and encountered. I learned from my friends triumphs and missteps and developed a lot of wisdom over the years.

As a result, I see your question from different angles. Choices have consequences. We should endeavor to make choices that bring favorable results that improve our welfare. There's a lot we can do that's detrimental. When we develop regard for ourselves we choose otherwise. When we nurture a relationship with the Lord we recognize we're needed and folly loses its appeal.

When we mature we view our behavior differently and recognize the better course we could have taken. Lamentations are normal and reinforce the teachings we've absorbed and holy precepts. It's fine to feel regret for our mistakes but we shouldn't remain there.

We should recognize the necessity of our contribution and commitment to fulfilling our Kingdom assignment. By doing so we're able to petition the Lord to extend our days and restore what the locusts, cankerworm and palmerworm have destroyed.

Our contrition must be sincere as should our commitment to the work He's called us to perform. And He may grant the request much like He did for Hezekiah. If we're asking for length of days for greater sin He's unlikely to agree. But if our heart's desire is to serve the Kingdom He can increase the time or double our output. We should ask for both and leave the choice to Him.

~bella

There is a variety of scriptures in the Bible which states there are some things we can to to shorten our days or lengthen them.

d taylor said:

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Sin can cut a person's life short.

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seeker2122 said:

so is this proof that we do not determine how long we live? I can live a healthy life but die young of sickness or I can live an unhealthy life and live until I'm 118? We basically don't have a say in how long or how short we live? It's already determined for us regardless of the choices we make right now? Or maybe God already knew all the choices we were going to make before we were formed therefore he knew exactly how long we'd live or not live and just made it sound like he determined / appointed us the specific length?

Click to expand...

Richard T said:

God knows but part of your life is based on your free will. Hezekiah got 15 extra years when he repented. Sin can take away life, there is even a sin unto death. More importantly there are ways prolong your life. Honoring your father and mother, following God's word. Here I found that God often repeated that certain bible figures lived a full life. Scriptures To Live a Long Life

many might overlook this but I tim 4:8 even says: For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

Deuteronomy 4:40 – “So you shall keep His statutes and His commandments which I am giving you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may live long on the land which the LORD your God is giving you for all time.”

Deuteronomy 34:7 – Although Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died, his eye was not dim, nor his vigor abated.

Click to expand...

Joseph G said:

I think it's both - in a mysterious way that we don't understand. Our free will choices, including prolonging our lives through healthy living or blessings received, are still within the confines of His pre-determined will.

And then there are the instances where our days here end no matter how much we strive to extend them. An example would be the musician Keith Green - in my opinion a valuable and talented servant of God with a vital ministry. Nevertheless, God allowed him to die in a plane crash. He was still young and probably in good health.

So I just leave the timing in the hands of the Lord, and don't overly fret over whether I'm doing my part. To adopt an attitude Keith expresses in one of his songs:

"Just keep doing your best
Pray that it's blessed
Jesus takes care of the rest."

Matthew 6:27 NIV

"Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"

Click to expand...

NBB said:

The bible says, 'I don't want the death who dies, repent and you will live'
So God is saying people to repent, and also promised long life to those who respect their parents, sometimes God wanted to do things with people and they didn't want/allowed, those actions could end up in a shortened life as consequences.
God also prolonged the life of that king, the prophet told him he would die, he prayed to God and was granted more years of life.

So our decisions may end up with consequences.

Click to expand...

Notice how we excuse God from what is distasteful to us —that God causes the hard things as well as the good things in life. We have built all sorts of structures of reasoning and worldviews, and we use their accompanying terminology to ease the incongruity we find that to our minds would suggest that God is behind the awful things of life —and this in the face of God doing so in example after example in Scripture. Is God not, in these systems where he is not responsible in any way for suffering, capable of keeping those things from happening?

But even that last question is bogus, because God doesn't need our excuses for his involvement in every detail, much as we might like to excuse him. The truth cuts to the bone: God intends for all things, and decreed all things to happen in every precise detail, to include humans, and their choices, and the results of the choices.

God is not a co-resident with us within a larger reality of chance and fate. Nor does God plan out our lives just for in case we figure out the plan before it is too late. Nobody dies before God intends. Our view of such things is silly —if someone kills himself, he is doing exactly as God intended, though not as God commanded.

This life is God's, to do with exactly as he will.

Mark Quayle said:

Notice how we excuse God from what is distasteful to us —that God causes the hard things as well as the good things in life. We have built all sorts of structures of reasoning and worldviews, and we use their accompanying terminology to ease the incongruity we find that to our minds would suggest that God is behind the awful things of life —and this in the face of God doing so in example after example in Scripture. Is God not, in these systems where he is not responsible in any way for suffering, capable of keeping those things from happening?

But even that last question is bogus, because God doesn't need our excuses for his involvement in every detail, much as we might like to excuse him. The truth cuts to the bone: God intends for all things, and decreed all things to happen in every precise detail, to include humans, and their choices, and the results of the choices.

God is not a co-resident with us within a larger reality of chance and fate. Nor does God plan out our lives just for in case we figure out the plan before it is too late. Nobody dies before God intends. Our view of such things is silly —if someone kills himself, he is doing exactly as God intended, though not as God commanded.

This life is God's, to do with exactly as he will.

Click to expand...

Jesus, said in that scripture 'how much i wanted to do x and you didn't allow...'
To say God decrees everything we do is wrong imo, God doesn't plan to people to sin, he doesn't want people to sin, that is consequences of decisions and more sin before and other things.

Anyway you can end up 'crazy' thinking about this kind of stuff, it's just what i think.