– What do you consider to be the greatest possession that you have?
– What do you think is the greatest endowment that you have received?
– What do you consider to be the greatest gift that you have received?
– What is the most precious thing that you have which you could invest?
– What do you consider to be the greatest thing that God has given you to use for His glory?
I consider that one of the best answers to each of these questions is TIME. Time is most probably the greatest thing that we have received from God as His creatures. It is also probably the greatest thing that we have which we could invest in His service. I am thoroughly amazed by the faithfulness and the fairness of God. He is indeed the God who is impartial. Knowing the far-reaching importance of time, He has ensured that each human being is given the same quantity of time each day – twenty-four hours. Every human being who has ever been born on Planet Earth has had twenty-four hour days. The president of the most important nation on earth has a twenty-four hour day and the villager in a remote forest village also has a twenty-four hour day. I have a twenty-four hour day and you have a twenty-four hour day.
It is obvious that there are great differences in human accomplishments. The question is, “To what do we attribute these differences in accomplishments?” Some people will attribute them to differences in talents, education, background, and so on. There is certainly some truth in these. However, we believe that what contributes the most to distinguishing the extent of the accomplishments of one person from those of another, is the way that the individuals concerned have used that four-lettered word TIME.
Let me dare to ask you a personal question. “How do you use your time?” There are twenty-four hours in a day and one hundred and sixty-eight hours in a week. Last week you had one hundred and sixty-eight hours at your disposal. What did you do with those hours? How many of those hours were invested in knowing and serving the Lord? Let us take for granted that you spent twelve hours last week in prayer, Bible study, Bible meditation, worship, evangelism and other aspects of Christian service, you would only have given Him 8.3% of your time. What did you do with the remaining 91.7%? The truth is that you will rise up on judgment day to give account of how that 91.7% of the time was used. I ask again, How much of last week was used for God? Face things honestly. How much was spent on prayer?
As we have said, God has not given us the same spiritual gifts nor the same opportunities. He has, however, given us the same amount of time. It can therefore be expected that on judgment day we shall be judged not on the basis of our talents or spiritual gifts but on the basis of how we used the time that was given to us.
Time! What a precious gift from God!! Time, what a perishable gift!! The truth is that, whatever time was lost last week has been lost eternally. There is no possibility of ever recovering it. When a person encounters an hour, a minute or a second, he is encountering it for the last time in time. He will encounter it only one more time and that will be at the Judgment Seat of Christ, when he will be called upon to give account of how he used that hour, minute or second the first time he encountered it. The fact that each one will answer before the Lord for the way he has used all the seconds of his life, makes the use of time awfully important. It becomes obvious that anyone who is going to go anywhere with the Lord, has to work hard on the use of time. Oh, Father, I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you will grant to your children a revelation of the importance of time. In the name of the Lord Jesus, I judge the spirit of idleness and the spirit of laziness. I judge the spirit of procrastination and the spirit of wasting time. I judge the spirit of ease that has caused the ruin of many lives through the waste of time. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I awaken Your children to time consciousness and to the redemption of time. Lord do it, for I ask in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. We agree that these are the last days. They are not only the last days, they are evil days. Because the days are evil, the apostle warned, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish but understand what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:15-17).
We are to be careful how we walk.
We are to walk wisely.
We are to make the most of the time.
We are to redeem the time.
We are not to be foolish.
We are to be wise in understanding the will of God.
We are to understand that the will of God is that we redeem the time.
This being so, we can say with assurance that the one who does not make the most of the time, the one who does not redeem time, is being most unwise. The person who would stand by and allow a minute to be wasted, is a fool. He is letting go that which he ought to redeem but which once lost is lost for ever.
(From the book The Use of Time Part 2 pg 24)
