Post No. 16 - Reading Time: 4:10

Welcome to Tax Day. It’s always good to contribute to a government that does so much for us. That being said, I want to talk about how hurried our lives are and how our spiritual lives suffer from it.

For the most part that suffering is simply from neglect, but today I want to address those who earnestly want to spend more time with their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

In the book of Luke Jesus makes a statement at the end of his parable about the Unjust Steward. It seems out of place and deeply profound, but simply taking it for what it says, we can glean some tremendous wisdom for our own lives. Jesus said this:

“The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.”

Luke 16:8b KJV

The reason I insert this statement here is because the world has a better handle on a few things than the average believer. One of those areas is the use of their time.

The reality is that you cannot “make time.” It is the same amount day after day, year after year. How you use it is what makes the difference in your life. For people who say they don’t have time for church, what they are really saying is that it is not a priority in their lives. The same goes for reading the Bible or spending time in prayer. It’s just not that valuable to them—or they are not at all aware of how they actually spend their time.

And for those who are aware that they are not spending their time as they should, some don’t know what they are supposed to do about it.

Moving beyond what you consider priorities in life, the key to having time for the things you value is a schedule. Yes, simply a schedule that you have trained yourself to follow. It’s self-imposed constraints our your own life.

For many, the things around them impose a schedule upon them—they have got to be at work, at school, or at the doctor’s office. If it were not running from one thing to the next, there would be no actual order to their lives. Why? Because a schedule is something they have never had for themselves. They are just responding to what is imposed upon them. They have always relied on the one imposed upon them to get them to do the things they should do.

Call it deadlines, events, or whatever, life must be more than meeting the next demand that presents itself you. It must be something you are actually in control of.

Well, the truth is, you are in control of your schedule. Albeit, it comes with a price. That price is your time. To include the things you truly value you have to reorder the way you use your time. That’s what we call a schedule.

When I began setting aside an hour a day for prayer, it altered my schedule, taking several hours away from other things. Do I miss those things? No. And I can’t for the life of me remember what they were. Prayer now just fits into my daily routine.

I say that to help you understand that there is time for what you value. You don’t have to make anymore. You don’t need 36 hours in the day. You simply need to re-order the hours you have and make sure they are not idle, or wasted, or consumed by others.

You start small by setting your hours of sleep, your times to eat, and other basic functions of life, like bathing and cleaning the house. Then you move on to the more critical aspects of your life, like time with God and time with your family.

At this point you may be saying that this is pretty simple stuff. If it is, then why are so many people not getting it and saying, “I don’t have time for the things of God.”?

The world knows this all too well and daily planners and software tools abound to help them schedule their time and get the most out of life. For them it may be a dinner party or a vacation, but they go into great detail with their plans. For us, should we not schedule the time for the things we value, and do we not value the things of God?

So instead of saying we ought to “make time,” maybe we ought to just “take time” to do what really counts.

Until next Monday, may the Lord bless you! Pray for us!

Pastor Brian Jenkins

Calvary Assemblies of God

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