THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "WHEN" AND "IF"

We use “when” and “if” so many times and I hope we all know the differences between these two, however we need to be careful how we use them. “If I get money I’ll buy that house”…”when I get money, I’ll buy that house”. Can you see the difference. Using “if” automatically tells you that you are unsure you’ll ever get the money. My uncle Google defines “if” as “despite the possibility that”. The word “if” shows uncertainties. I know when they were creating that word that wasn’t the intention but that is just how it comes across to me. Let's say someone asks you to marry them and they say “if you say yes”, they are saying that cause they ain’t sure of your answer which is definitely normal cause you never know what the answer of the person will be. But a confident person, when I say confident I mean the person that knows that you want this more than they want this will probably say “when you say yes” because they’re sure of your answer. (If you disagree with me, let’s talk about it). There are certain verses that says “if” like Galatians 6:8…it says “If you live to satisfy your sinful self, the harvest you will get from that will be eternal death. But if you live to please the Spirit, your harvest from the Spirit will be eternal life.”

The word if in this verse is saying “we don’t know what you’re living for so if you’re living to satisfy your sinful self, your end goal is death. However, if you know yourself and you know you’re living to please the Spirit, your end results will be eternal life”. The "if" there is to allow you to sit there and think about whether you are living for Christ or what? And when your become sure, change the "if" in that statement to “when” and see. “When you live to satisfy your sinful self, the harvest you will get from that will be eternal death. But when you live to please the Spirit, your harvest from the Spirit will be eternal life”. Now the statement becomes something you’re sure of. It becomes “okay when I live for God this is what I get and when I live for sinful stuff I know that this is what I will get”.

Try and use “when” to replace every "if" you see and you will see the power the sentence holds. Everything becomes clear and bold. A lot of “if” are used in the Bible because we have a free will when it comes to making any decision (Galatians 5:13). So the Bible is telling you that “if you choose to do this or that”…because it is giving you the chance to change that if you when. Because uncle Google thinks “when” means “at or during the time that” so the Bible is saying when the time comes for you to do that, this is when this or that will happen. Let me use another “if” verse to explain this. “So if you eat, or if you drink, or if you do anything, do it for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians‬ ‭10:31‬ ‭ERV). So when it’s time for you to eat or drink or ‬‬do anything, do it to glory God. When the time comes and you find yourself eating, just know this is the time for me to glorify God. I hope all of this makes sense to you and I pray that God will change all our "ifs" to "whens" so when we speak, we speak with confidence not doubts and uncertainties. We bless your name God.

Prayer: Lord, we’ve learnt your word today and we pray that you help us speak in confidence and when the right time comes, we do everything that glorifies your name. This we ask in Jesus name, amen.