God is unpredictable in His providence and therefore works His plans within our lives without us even knowing it.”
–Kenneth Pratt (Willow Falls)
“Now the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will personally restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little.”
–1 Peter 5:10 (HCSB)
————————–
Complacency and distractions are dangerous foes. They will take a person away from their goals, mission, and focus on life. They will steal away your time and be certain that God will hold you accountable for your time–how it was spent and how it was wasted. How much time is wasted everyday? People are hollering for a $15 minimum wage, but how about them being accountable for their time on the job? Not even thinking about doing excellence, is the job being done properly and at least up to minimum standards?
I happened to come across another article by Horatius Bonar and I am going to pass it on this morning. This is one that should be read every week, perhaps for some it would serve to be read every day.
“If we would aim at a holy and useful life, let us learn to redeem time. ‘I am large about redeeming time,’ says Richard Baxter in the preface to his Christian Directory, ‘because therein the sum of a holy, obedient life is included.’ Yes; ‘let us redeem the time, because the days are evil’ (Ephesians 5:16; Colossians 4:5). A wasted life is the result of unredeemed time. Desultory working, impulsive giving, fitful planning, irregular reading, ill-assorted hours, perfunctory or unpunctual execution of business, hurry and bustle, loitering and unreadiness–these, and such like, are the things that take the power from life, hinder holiness, and eat like a canker into our moral being. Misuse of time makes success and progress an impossibility, either in things temporal or spiritual.
“There needs not to be routine, but there must be regularity; there ought not to be mechanical stiffness, but there must be order; there may not be haste, but there must be no trifling with our own time or that of others. ‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with they might’ (Ecclesiastes 9:10). If the thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well; and, in little things as well as great, we must show that we are in earnest. There must be no idling, but a girding up of the loins; a running the race with patience; the warring of a good warfare. The call is to be ‘steadfast and … always abounding in the work of the Lord.’
“The flowers are constant in their growing, the stars are constant in their courses; the rivers are constant in their flowing–they lose not time. So must our life be, not one of fits, or starts, or random impulses, not one of levity or inconstancy, or fickle scheming, but steady and resolute. We must be resolute men and women, those who know their earthly mission and have their eyes upon the heavenly goal.” (They Walked With God)
The days are certainly evil; it seems to lurk all around us. It is something that we cannot escape, therefore, how much more should we be redeeming the time! Instead we turn to entertainment, phones, video games, and other forms of frivolity. Not that these are necessarily wrong, but in their use are we conscious of the time and the mission of our life? Do they pull us away from time with God or time with family?
In closing this morning I urge you to take inventory of how your time is spent and I would have you remember the words of Paul in his letter to the Corinthians. “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” (1 Corinthains 15:58, NKJV) Redeem the time, for these days are surely evil.