Do you find that you're often late for worship services? Do you feel like kicking yourself when, for the third week in a row, it's announced that Sister Smith remains ill; and you've not yet been to visit her? You intended to go, but just haven't found the time. What's the real problem?
Some folks say that life today is just so much busier, more hectic, more demanding than it was a generation or two ago. Is this why we're late for Bible study and worship and always falling short of accomplishing the things we "want" to do in God's service?
This probably is just an excuse. Oh, certainly, we have more diversions today than our grandparents had, but we still have the same 24-hour days they had. And remember that granddad had to get up before daylight to go to work and sometimes worked until dark, six days a week. Grandma was up by 4:30 a.m. to fix breakfast. There were no microwaves, dishwashers, frozen dinners, prepared foods, and such like.
They didn't have as many ballgames, TV programs, school events, camping trips, and barbeques to attend; but there were critical demands on their time. Yet, in many cases, our grandparents seemed to have "found more time" to visit with friends and relatives than we do, and many of them never missed, or were late for, a worship service. What is really the difference? More than likely, the difference has to do with our priorities and the ways we use our time.
If you are regularly late to worship, are you putting as much priority on worship as you do on work? If you don't know how to answer this question, here's a test. How often are you late for work?
If you regularly miss worship altogether, you may be like Felix (Acts 24:25) who was looking for a "convenient" time to do the Lord's will. Unless a person thinks serving God is of utmost importance, a convenient time seldom comes.
Time is the only irreplaceable possession that God has given us. It is brief, fleeting, and irrecoverable.
We can sin many ways. Misusing our time is one of them. Procrastination is a form of this sin. It is rooted in worldliness. We put off doing certain things because they may be difficult or unpleasant, or because we want to do something more satisfying to please ourselves. Some of the tasks-such as confronting a sinner about his error, or correcting an erring brother-that Christians face will always be unpleasant and difficult.
Many of us don't have time because we waste time. We waste time by using it for what suits us at the moment, or by trying to find satisfaction in work, money, and earthly pleasures. Time, like money, must be managed, or it slips away from us, and we get no lasting good from it.
The Bible speaks of this when Colossians 4:5 and Ephesians 5:16 instruct us to "redeem the time." Redeeming something requires "buying it back," as the Lord did when he used his own life as the purchase price for our redemption and salvation. Redeeming time means buying up our opportunities. We redeem time by paying for it through the sacrifice of other things for which we could have used the time.
It's just like any other purchase. You trade the value of one commodity for another. You sacrifice one thing for another, whether you trade some of your green beans for another person's corn, or give a vendor $15 for a shirt.
We must manage time, or it begins to manage us. If time manages us, now becomes never as we procrastinate and waste our time. Some "windows of opportunity" only open once. The Lord, for example, doesn't offer us umpteen chances to hear the gospel and obey it. Likewise, we've all faced life or death decisions that we had only seconds to make. Procrastination could have meant death.
Sadly, some of us will waste our minutes, hours, and days until we squander away an entire lifetime. One day, time will cease. God's great judgment will come, and we'll each give account of how we've used our time. You see, time is just another way of describing life. When you don't manage your time, when you waste your time, you're really mismanaging or wasting your LIFE!
Time is indeed a very precious thing. We each have the same amount-168 hours per week. It seems as though we just never "find the time" to do the things we should be doing, intend to do, but just don't get around to doing.
Yet, we always find the time to do the things we enjoy most. Some of us enjoy playing golf, so we find time during the week and the weekends to play. Others like to hunt or fish and find the time to take vacations so we can get away for a while to catch some fish or get that big buck. Still others like riding recreational bikes, hiking, playing sports and video games, or maybe just taking weekend trips away from home. But we just can't find the time for such things as Bible study, teaching Bible classes, reading our Bibles with our spouses or children, attending gospel meetings, attending midweek Bible studies, talking to our neighbors about having Bible studies, visiting the sick or those in the hospital, or encouraging our weaker brothers and sisters in Christ. It's very frustrating.
Does this sound familiar? What's the problem? It's not the amount of time we have, but how we use the time that God gives us. Too many of us, instead of controlling our own lives, allow our lives to control us. Face it folks-we find time for the things we want to do. We all set schedules for using the time we have after the work we must do to earn a living. How do we use those hours and days? Maybe, all we need to do is change the way we set our schedules and what we do with the time we have.
Dear reader, we need to remember that our lives consist of the everyday choices we make. I control the time in my life by how I choose to use, or waste, it. "For if there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has, and not according to what he does not have." {2 Corinthians 8:12} Could it be that we run out of time for the very important spiritual matters in our lives because we use it for temporary pleasures? Honesty compels me to say that if brethren would change their priorities in life, they would find time to do those things they seem to be unable to accomplish now. It all comes down to how we manage our time in this life.
Yes, one day our time will stop-either because of death or the Lord's coming. When we stand before Him in judgment (2 Corinthians 5:10), we will give an accounting of how we used the time God gave us. How are you using the God-given time in your life? Dear friend, if you're cheating God, it's better to correct the problem now-before eternity, when there'll be nothing but time-regardless whether you are in heaven or hell. (KMG)