Purpose
Five
Years from Now
Five
years from now where will you be and what will you be doing? If the
answer is, “I want to be doing something different from what I am
doing now, the question becomes, “How will you spend time today to
move you in that direction?”
God has a
purpose and plan for each of our lives. But we don’t just happen to
stumble on to that plan without effort. Becoming all God wants us
to be involves spending time each day to move us in the direction of
our goals. If we see a big discrepancy between where we say we want
to be in five years and how we are spending today, we need to
carefully examine our lives to see if we really are using our time
the way God wants us to.
So,
before you go to bed tonight, take ten minutes to write out what you
think God wants you to be doing five years from now. Then, plan how
you’re going to redeem the time.
Adoniram Judson
Adoniram
Judson was a pioneer missionary to Burma who was greatly used of
God. While still a young man he made the following journal entry
one New Year’s Eve.
“[Think]
of how much real happiness we cheat our souls by preferring a trifle
to God! We have a general intention of living religion but we
intend to begin tomorrow or next year. The present moment we prefer
giving to the world. ‘A little more sleep, a little more slumber.’
Well, a little more sleep, and we shall sleep in the grave. A few
days, and our work will be done. And when it is once done, it is
done for all eternity. A life once spent is irrevocable. It will
remain to be contemplated through eternity. If it be marked with
sins, the marks will be indelible. If it has been a useless life,
it can never be improved. Such it will stand forever and ever.
Adoniram
Judson was greatly used of God because he purposed to redeem the
time.
An
African Parable
An
African parable teaches us a valuable lesson about motivation.
Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows that it must
run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every
morning a lion wakes up. It knows that it must run faster than the
slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
So it
doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun
comes up you had better be running.
Well,
lots of Christians go through life with the attitude that time is
just not that important. They don’t even seem to have as much
motivation as an African beast when it comes to using their energy
to be the best they can be for the Lord.
God
teaches us many lessons through nature. These animals teach us that
we must use all our energies to serve the Lord. Let’s take this as
a valuable reminder to redeem the time.
Develop Christian
Character
Developing Christian
character is at the heart of what it means to grow in Christ. One
method of reaching your goal of developing Christ-like character is
keeping a list of character qualities on a 3x5 card. Look at these
cards when you have waiting time and think of something you can do
wherever you are to implement that quality. This will give an
immediate opportunity to practice the character trait.
For example; you have to
wait at your doctor's office. You might pull out your card with a
reminder to practice patience. Instead of fuming about the late
doctor, you might see if there is someone in the waiting room you
could converse with. Or maybe you could pray for whatever situation
has caused the doctor to run late. Maybe someone ahead of you had a
medical emergency, and they need your prayer.
Taking advantage of
little opportunities to develop Christ-like character is an
important way to redeem the time.
Calvin
Coolidge
Calvin
Coolidge was the 29th President of the United States. He
was often called “Quiet Calvin” because of his soft-spoken nature.
When told that Coolidge had died, someone asked, “How could they
tell?”
Coolidge
may not have been the most outspoken President or the best
remembered, but he was a good manager of his time. One of his best
quotes was often cited by McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc. Coolidge
said:
“Nothing
in the word can take the place of persistence. Talent will not;
there is nothing more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education
will not. The world is full of educated derelicts.”
Coolidge’s quiet persistence eventually landed him the most powerful
job in the world. Ray Kroc’s persistence made him the most
successful restaurant owner in history. But Jesus told us that by
persistence in prayer even greater things could be accomplished that
will matter in eternity. Persistently doing God’s will is redeeming
the time.
Stay
on Target
Welcome
to archery class! For this lesson you will need your bow, some
arrows, and a blindfold. First set up the target 50 feet away.
Next pick up your bow and arrow. Then have your partner apply the
blindfold and spin you around. Finally, shoot the arrow directly
into the bull's eye. Any questions?
Grumble
“Um,
ma’am, how do you expect us to hit a target that we can't see?”
You
might think that archery teacher was very unwise. But perhaps you
are shooting for a target you can't see. If you have never clearly
identified your goals and committed them to writing, then you too
are shooting for a target you have never seen, and your likelihood
of achieving your goal is about as good as that of a blindfolded
archer. Prayerfully, committing your time to specific written goals
is one way to stay on target and to redeem the time.
Failure Can Bring Success
What makes the difference between
average achievers and high producers? What separates those who do
great things for God from those who live lives of quiet desperation?
It is the way they respond to
failure. Those who never experience true success, miss it because
they have not properly responded to failures which God has allowed
them to experience on the road to their success. There is no
achievement without failure along the way.
God never promised every project we
try would succeed in the eyes of man. He doesn’t expect everything
you touch to turn to gold. So don’t waste time lamenting your
failures. Learn from them and get your next assignment from God.
It is okay to fail, because if you aren’t failing you probably
aren’t growing as a Christian and having much of an impact for the
Lord either.
Learning to not waste time in the wake
of a failure is a necessary skill for redeeming the time.
Don’t Carry Extra Rocks
God met with a man and asked him to
take three rocks in a wagon to the top of a hill. Eager to please
God, the man cheerfully obeyed, singing praises to the Lord as he
went.
Soon a friend heard where he was going
and asked if he would mind carrying an extra rock he had been
needing to get up the hill himself, but he just hadn’t had time.
“Of course,” the man replied. And off he went, a bit more burdened,
but grateful he could serve his friend while serving the Lord.
But in each town he passed while going
up the hill, another friend persuaded him to take another little
burden of theirs until finally until as he neared the top, the load
became so heavy the man gave up the journey. He became angry with
God asking, “Why did you give such a heavy load to bear?” Then God
took out the extra rocks and the burden became light again.
Remember, extra rocks can hinder you
from redeeming the time
Blocks of Time
The ability to concentrate on a
project for extended blocks of time is a common characteristic of
successful people. An example of this is the greatest inventor of
all time, Thomas Edison. Edison was known to work for days at a
time with only minimal sleep in order to bring one of his inventions
to completion. As a result, his name is on over 1,000 patents at
the US patent office. He also became one of the wealthiest men of
his day.
Jesus exposed the flimsiness of his
disciples and their ineffectual prayer life when in the Garden of
Gethsemane He asked Peter,
AWhat,
could ye not watch with me one hour?@
Jesus knew the power of extended time in prayer.
What is the most important project in
your life right now? Schedule a time when you can spend an
extended block of time bringing it to completion. That's
the only way you'll
ever get it done. Working in extended blocks of time is a great
tactic for redeeming the time.
Be Flexible
Can you scratch your ears with your
feet, or turn your legs completely around so you're literally
walking backwards? Pierre Beauchemin was a man who could. His
unusual ability to dislocate his legs earned him the title of the
world's most elastic man. On one occasion he even folded himself
down small enough to fit inside a picnic basket.
While you will probably never need to
fit into a picnic basket, learning to be flexible could help you
manage your time. Flexibility means being able to change our plans
if unexpected conditions require it. Amaziah, an Old Testament
King, hired 100,000 mercenaries to help defeat an enemy army. But,
when God’s prophet warned him not to go through with it, he changed
his plans by paying them and sending them home without a fight. God
then rewarded him with victory in battle.
Remaining flexible to the leading of
God and setting our affections on His plan instead of ours is how we
redeem the time.
Do Right
The founder of a well
known Christian university is remembered for a simple two word quote
he often gave to his students. The little two word sermon was “Do
right”
A large part of
redeeming the time is simply doing the next right thing with each
moment of your time. It means striving to apply each moment of time
to its highest possible use. God has a perfect plan for you today.
You can picture this plan as several small assignments which will
make up your complete mission for the day. The key to having a
successful day, is just to have an accumulation of successful
smaller missions.
So ask yourself, what is
the next right thing I need to do? Going from one right thing to
the next throughout the day will give the results you desire at the
end of the day. And ending your day well is a good reward for
redeeming the time.
Amy Carmichael
In 1895 a young lady named Amy
Carmichael set sail from the comforts of the British Isles for the
remote land of India. She was beginning a journey that would last
the remaining 56 years of her life. During the coming years she
would care for more than 1,000 children who otherwise would have
faced a life with no hope followed by eternity without Christ. She
would also become one of the great writers of her day as she wrote
nearly three dozen books that continue to stir souls a century
later. Her life was characterized by total, humble obedience to
Christ and a deep desire to do all she could for Him.
Amy Carmichael once said "We
will have all eternity to celebrate the victory but only a few hours
before sunset."
Amy was right. Those "few
hours before sunset"
present the most precious resource God ever entrusted to us-our
time. Each of us is in a race with time. The challenge is to see
how much we can do for the Kingdom of God between now and the day we
die. To do that, we must begin right now, to zealously redeem the
time.
Frozen Ground
An Alaskan farmer needed to build a
fence and wanted the job done quickly. Each day, as the thawing of
the ground permitted, he chopped away at the frozen land to dig his
post holes. He kept steadily at it, each day digging just a little
deeper through the hard frozen earth. Finally, after a long spring,
and with great frustration and many sore muscles, he finished
digging the last hole.
That same day, his neighbor, having
waited till the ground was ready, also put up his new fence posts,
all of them in one day, the same day the first farmer finished his.
Sometimes we're
like that first farmer. We're
so eager to get going on a project we don't
wait on God's
timing. One example might be child training. We want to see our
five year old succeed so badly we'll
spend days teaching them something they could grasp in a few minutes
as an eight year old. God said "To
every thing there is a season".
Being careful to wait on God's
timing is an important part of redeeming the time.
Learning to Walk
Remember when you taught your child to
walk? You were so excited, you gathered the grandparents in the
living room and everyone clapped and cheered as the little one took
those first baby steps from mommy’s arms to daddy’s arms.
Did you teach your child to walk by
focusing on his failures or focusing on his successes? No parent
teaches his child to walk by saying, “OK kid, you’ve got 12 chances
to get this thing right, and if you keep on falling down we’re
giving up on you.”
No, we learn by failing. That
principle holds true in all of life. Many people never experience
God’s best for their lives because they focus on failure. Failure
is an event. It is not a person. We can fail many times and not be
a failure. No one is a failure until they stop using their time to
accomplish the thing God wants them to do.
Consistently focusing on our goals,
while learning from our failures, is God’s method of redeeming the
time.
Michaelangelo
Michaelangelo spent four grueling
years on his back painting over four hundred larger than life
figures on the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel. The task was so demanding that when he finished friends
hardly recognized him because he had aged so much. When asked one
day why he was working so diligently in a dark corner of a chapel on
a painting no one would ever see, Michaelangelo replied, "God will
see"
You will likely be tempted today to
cut corners and take the easy way out of your work. Maybe, you
think, no one will ever know. But as Michaelangelo, said, God will
see and that's really what matters most. That's why we should
consider the words of Scripture to do our work heartily as unto the
Lord and not unto men. Doing our work to please God instead of man
means we are redeeming the time.
A Rash of Good Luck
Did you hear about the genetic
engineer who tried to combine a 4 leaf clover with poison ivy? He
was looking for something to give him a rash of good luck.
Unfortunately lots of people today are
like that scientist, looking for luck to make them successful or to
give them the break they need to get ahead in life. But the Bible
never speaks of anyone getting lucky or having bad luck. Rather,
God says in Proverbs that “The hand of the diligent shall prosper,
but the slothful shall be under tribute.” God promises that those
who apply themselves will be rewarded accordingly, both in this life
and for those who are saved, in the life to come. Another Scripture
says, “In all labor there is profit.”
When we lose the mentality of luck or
fate controlling the events of our life and begin to accept full
responsibility for our actions, while acknowledging God’s sovereign
control, we gain the true frame of reference we need to redeem the
time.
Planting
Trees
An old Chinese proverb says the best
time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is
today.
Most of us can look back on life 10 or
20 years ago and wish we had done some things differently. And
while we are wise to learn from our mistakes, it's
also one of Satan's
favorite tactics to make us waste time fretting over things we can't
change. God doesn't
want us to spend time groveling and moaning over past failures.
Remember the words of Nehemiah that,
"The
joy of the Lord is your strength."
Satan would like nothing better than for you to miss even more
opportunities to serve God, because you're
spending time focusing on past failures.
The way to enjoy good fruit 20 years
from now is not to mope over your barren fields today, but rather to
go out right now and start planting some seeds and redeeming the
time.
An Hour vs. a Million Years
In his book, “Measure your Life”
Wesley Duewell makes the following observation about the way we
spend our time:
Life is an investment. God planned it
that way. For every hour we sow in our earthly life, there will be
millions of years of reaping in eternity. No life will ever end.
Once we are conceived in our mother’s womb, we will never cease to
exist. Death does not end existence. Nothing that a person can
ever do can shorten his existence or cause it to end.
Mr. Duewell gave us a very profound
thought. Think of it- millions of years of reaping the consequences
for one hour of time in this world.
What are you planning to do with the
next hour of your life? Before you settle in to watch another
television program, consider the fact that what you do in the next
hour will have millions of years of consequences. That might make
you want to redeem the time.
No Fear
No fear! That's
a popular slogan today. But is it really wise to have no fear? If
you walk a tightrope over Niagra Falls some fear would be helpful to
keep you alert. Scripture says we're
to fear God. If you're
not saved, you should fear God's
judgment enough to get saved.
There's
another fear every Christian needs. That is the fear of mediocrity.
Our word mediocre comes from the Latin medius, which gives us two
other words, "medium"
meaning not too hot, not too cold, and median, which sits in the
middle of the road.
Medium strength, middle of the road,
Christians are mediocre because they use their time in mediocre
ways. They don't
attempt things out of the ordinary. They won't
leave the comfort zone. They are not willing to take the risks,
develop the discipline, and make the commitments necessary to rise
above mediocrity.
The prospect of such a life should
make us fear. Jesus said he would spew the lukewarm from his
mouth. Let the fear of being mediocre be a powerful motivation to
you right now to redeem the time.
Noah’s Ark
Someone gleaned the following time
management principles from the account of Noah’s ark:
1: Don't miss the boat.
God has something He wants you to accomplish.
2: Plan ahead. It
wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark.
3: Stay fit. When you're
60 years old, someone may ask you to do something really big.
4: Don't listen to
critics; just get on with the job that needs to be done.
5: Speed isn't always an
advantage. The snails were on board with the cheetahs. God honors
persistence and diligence.
6: Remember, the Ark was
built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals. God’s way of doing
things might not always be man’s way.
7: No matter the storm,
when you are doing what God wants, there's always a rainbow waiting
so don’t give up, keep these lessons from Noah’s ark in mind and
redeem the time.
Long Range Planning
It has been said that we tend to
overestimate what we can accomplish in one year, but we also tend to
underestimate what we can accomplish in 5 years.
Long range planning is a valuable
exercise for gaining control of our time. Long range goals give a
sense of purpose and direction to our lives. They let us know where
we're
going and allow us to plan how we'll
get there. Long range plans give vision and hope.
Ultimately the most important long
range plan is where we plan to spend eternity. God says it is
appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgment. Have
you made your plans for eternity yet? If not, you have never made
the most important decision of your life. Settling the question of
your eternal destiny is the most important way to redeem the time.
Pace Yourself
There are two things a marathon runner
tries to avoid: running out of energy before finishing a race and
crossing the finish line with energy to spare.
Paul compares the Christian life to
running a race. Redeeming the time requires pacing ourselves. Some
think it heroic to burn themselves out at an early age boasting, "I'd
rather burn out than rust out."
Others never burn out because they never get lit.
But burning out or rusting out are not
the only two options. God's
way is to move forward at a steady pace as He gently guides us and
shows us the way.
Redeeming the time means pacing
ourselves for maximum effectiveness for the Lord.
And while pacing is good strategy for
life, it's
also an effective approach to daily tasks. What good is it to
accomplish a day's
work before lunch if it leaves you with no further energy for the
afternoon? So keep the pace. Keep the faith. Win the race. Redeem
the time.
Great Returns.
Time is given to you by God for an
investment. He has great plans to reward your investments. He
wants to make you a spiritual billionaire in Heaven by lavishing you
with great returns on the time you give Him. The more you follow His
directions for investing time, the greater the eternal returns will
be.
You would be a foolish person to
neglect the many opportunities God provides to gain spiritual wealth
each day.
So seize every precious opportunity
today to show God’s love and to tell someone of the Savior. You
cannot afford to neglect opportunities for spiritual investment of
your time. Rather, seek out those investment opportunities and
redeem the time.
Invest Your Life for God
Author Wesley Duewel wrote the
following poem called, “Invest Your Life for God”:
Invest your time for eternity;
Invest your life for the life to be.
Forever gone are the hours you’ve
lost.
Don’t waste your life; count again the
cost
Your money place in the Savior’s hand;
It’s only safe when on heaven’s
strand.
You never lose what you give to God,
But lose all else when beneath the
sod.
Invest your work in the Savior’s plan;
Work hard for God and His will for
man.
Don’t count the hours that you toil
and plod-
You’ll reap again all you do for God.
Don’t waste your life for a passing
joy;
Don’t sell your soul for a fragile
toy.
Give till it hurts; give your very
blood-
You live but once; live all out for
God.
That beautiful piece of poetry
expresses well the great rewards awaiting those who redeem the time.
From Measure your life 1992 Zondervan.
Benjamin
Franklin
One of
history's greatest time managers was also one of our founding
fathers. Not only was he a great statesman, diplomat and ambassador
to other countries, but he was also the inventor of bifocal
glasses, the lightning rod, and our modern design for a school desk
with a desktop on one arm of the chair. He also invented the
rocking chair and even the harmonica. He started America's first
fire department, first public library, the university of
Pennsylvania, as well as a life insurance company. Furthermore, he
started two publications: the Saturday Evening Post and
Poor Richards Almanac which are still in print over 200 years
later. He was also our first Postmaster General. The list keeps
going…
That man
of course is Benjamin Franklin who once said, “Do you love life?
Then don't waste your time, because that is what life is made of.”
Benjamin
Franklin, a challenging example of redeeming the time.
Self Control
Oswald Chambers who wrote the classic
devotional My Utmost for His Highest, said, "Always
do something you don't
need to do for the sake of doing it--it keeps you in moral fighting
trim."
Chambers understood the connection between self-control and
spiritual well-being. There is also a vital link between
self-control and our ability to use time well.
Those who fail to redeem the time are
often controlled by impulse appetite or whim instead of principle,
reason and the direction of God's
Spirit. Such lack of self-control leads to a lifestyle of randomly
skipping from one thing to the next, never staying with anything
long enough to see God's
blessing on it. Lack of control over appetites leads to
sluggishness and overindulgence both of which are serious time
robbers. Proverbs says "He
that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken
down and without walls."
Remember, self-control is a foundation
for redeeming the time.