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TIME
You may look at your life and say, "I don't have any more hours in my day to exercise, read the Bible, pray or do anything else. I don't have enough time!"What does that mean? Each of us have 24 hours every day to do whatever we choose. So, what do we choose to do with our time? The Bible speaks of the need to use time wisely -- "redeeming the time" (Ephesians 5:15-16).
Every day, "time" credits us with 86,400 seconds. In that sense, time is like a bank. Nobody gets a second more or less. (We sometimes speak as though others have more time than we do - a fallacy.) At the end of 24 hours time carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft. Each day you get a new account. If you fail to use the day's deposits wisely, the loss is yours. There is no going back, no drawing against tomorrow; you must live in the present on today's assets. You must invest it wisely to achieve the best!
The clock is running right now. Are we redeeming the time, or making excuses? The word rendered "redeeming," implies that we must rescue our time from waste; to use it for important purposes. Why should we do that? Because the times in which we live are evil. There are thousands of temptations that lead us away from the right use of time. It is not just things that are sinful in and of themselves, but things that just waste our time.
There are three things I can do with my time. It is much like money.
- I can waste it on things that do not profit. I have nothing to show for it.
- I can spend it on things that are necessary. I got value for it today.
- I can invest it for the future. I may get value from it both now and later.
Time is given to us for valuable purposes. Time is the realm in which we secure our salvation. This is it! It is now! There is not some period of time later (after this life) for us to prepare for our salvation. We have heaven to win; time is the field where the game is played; we will win or lose depending on what we have done with our time! There is no overtime, no timeout or any resetting of the clock! The time you have is that on which your eternity depends.
Yet, for many of us, we play games with time and claim we don't have time to make the needed changes in our lives. In view of eternity, we don't have time not to!
If you waste your time, you waste your soul. Thus, you must redeem the time!
Exchange it for valuable things!
