Redeeming Time

Time waits for no one. Take a moment of untrospection and ask, am I using or abusing time? Is there anything more fundamentally indispensable than the pulse of time? If your heart stops, your breathing halts, you lose consciousness, or die, time stands still for a moment. What exactly is time, anyway? Does time stand still? 

STILL TIME

Time is the relation to another event in the past, present, or future. It’s a comparison of two rhythms of reality. It’s movement compared to another object. Benjamin Franklin said “time is money,” but in actuality, time is more valuable than money. Einstein’s theory of relativity demonstrates that time is not absolute but can pass differently for observers depending on their relative motion and gravitational environment. It’s a matter of perspective.

SPEND TIME

Spending time to plan for your future is worth your time. If money is a symbol of human action, labor producing goods or delivering services, then actions create reactions resulting in loss or benefit. 

FUTURE TIME

In a song by the Steve Miller Band, “time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future.” Like a mighty river, we just watch it go out to the sea. As has often been eulogized, it’s water under the bridge and you can’t cry over spilled milk. When it’s gone, it’s gone forever, never to return. You can’t take it back but you can look back in time.

BACK IN TIME

Pretend you are in a rocket leaving earth faster than light. If you pass the light that left earth, you could actually look back in time. If you had a very strong telescope, you could see dinosaurs walking the earth. The light reflected from all objects on earth though all time is still out there, traveling into the heavens. Is it any wonder that God can exist outside of time? 2 Peter 3:8 explains, “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

Stuff happens, and it’s over. You can’t put a bullet back in the gun the same way it exited. What’s done is done. But Jesus said we can redeem time. We can maybe make up for lost time. “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom,” Psalms 90:12. So time matters. We should spend our time wisely.

USE TIME WISELY

“Time is the wisest counselor of all” – Pericles. What is the very best use of your very limited time on earth? I like to spend my time handing out Bibles to lost souls. I can’t do that all the time, but I can always use my time to serve God, to live for Jesus, and become a living testimony of His presence in my life. Spending time to share Christ, is the very best use of time, in my view. American educator, Stephen R. Covey said “The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.” When you get to heaven, you’ll be eternally rewarded. You can’t go back in time.

COUNTING TIME

In a reasured Christian hymn, Howard B. Grose wrote…

Give of your best to the Master;
Give of the strength of your youth;
Clad in salvation’s full armor,
Join in the battle for truth

C.S. Lewis said, “For the present is the point at which time touches eternity.” What happens in time when we use time for God? We get paid. Since “money” (value) is a symbol of labor in products or services when we use our valuable time to serve God, we make a spiritual deposit in the “Bank of Heaven” that pays eternal dividends. Every moment of your precious time spent living for Jesus is well worth it. 

Redeeming the time,

because the days are evil. 

Ephesians 5:16

OUT OF TIME

“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away” (James 4:14). God knows what’s around the corner, we don’t.  We’re driving in the dark and our headlights can’t shine around corners, but God has great night vision, and from his perspective, He knows what’s around the bend.

God was there. He formed the earth and the entire universe. He knows all my thoughts and motives and understands my situation. “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (Jeremiah 29:11). “My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me” (Psalms 31:15). “Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established” (Proverbs 16:3).

TIME’S UP

Take your time and think about this. I’m sitting here in my home and I hear the ticking of the wall clock. “Be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23). God has seen all the good, the bad, and the ugly. “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12). Are you really ready to face the judgment of God at time of death? “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). You are running out of time. Reevaluate your use of time.

TIME TO WAKE

It’s time to wake up and start a new chapter in the book of your life, to use time religiously. It’s time to change, time to say “yes” to God’s agenda. Acts 3:19 urges believers to “Repent, then, and turn to God.” Matthew 6:33, states “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Align your life to seeking God’s plan for success and His righteousness in your use of time, above all else in life. “For He saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation,” 2 Corinthians 6:2. 

DECISION TIME 

It’s time to stop wasting time. Are you ready to align your most precious commodity with God’s purpose for your life today? 1 Corinthians 10:31 challenges us, “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” Make that timely decision to “be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God,” Romans 12:2. It’s important to acknowledge and process past mistakes, but also to learn from them and move forward… 

END OF TIME

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).

If you made this life-changing decision today, you made it just in time!

Are youbready to meet God and give an account of the use of your time on earth? Onece you die, your time on earth stops. It’s over, time’s up!

REWARD TIME