“GETTING THE MOST OUT OF LIFE”                                          January 2, 2022

Dan Williams                                                                

If we are to be good stewards of the money God has given us, how much more should we make the best use of our time!

Ephesians 5:16  “Look carefully then how you     walk, not as unwise men but as wise, MAKING THE MOST OF THE TIME,    because the days are evil.”

Colossians 4:5  “Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, MAKING THE           MOST OF THE TIME.”

                   KJV “redeeming the time”

                   NIV  “make the most of every opportunity”

                   Phillips       “make the best possible use of your time”

FOUR GREAT TRUTHS ABOUT OUR TIME:

1.  TIME FLIES.   (James 4:14, Psalm 90:5, Job 7:6-7, 9:25-26, etc.)

This is the one Bible truth that sooner or later everyone, even unbelievers, comes to believe.  Can you believe that 2021 is over?  I’ve just gotten used to putting 2021 on my checks, and now I have to switch again!

QUESTION:  What is one thing that makes you realize just how much has changed during the time you have lived on this earth? 

When as a child I laughed and wept – TIME CREPT.

When as a youth I dreamed and talked – TIME WALKED.

When I became a full-grown man – TIME RAN.

Then as with the years I older grew – TIME FLEW.

Soon I shall find as I travel on – TIME GONE 

2.  TIME GOES ONE WAY.

QUESTION:  If you had a time travel machine, and could travel to any period in the past or in the future, where would you set the dial, and why?

We can dream about time travel, but we will never experience it.  Physicists recently announced a discovery they say proves that, contrary to the hopes of science fiction writers everywhere, there will never be such a thing as time travel.  Then the scientists added an intriguing post script:  even if there was, it would only go forward – you can never go back in time.

We already knew that!  There is no reverse gear on a clock!  We never get a lost hour back.

Verse 51 of Edward FitzGerald's translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

3.  TIME IS  PRECIOUS.

You’ve heard the business maxim:  “Time is money.”  More than that, time is LIFE!

Benjamin Franklin – “Do you love life?  Then do not waste time for that is the stuff life is made of.”

QUESTION:  What would you say is one of the biggest time wasters in our world today?

4.  TIME REVEALS OUR  PRIORITIES.

There are two things that always reveal our true priorities:  what we do with our MONEY, and what we do with our TIME.

Everyone says their FAITH and their FAMILY are their most important priorities, but….

THREE “TIME-BANDITS”:

1.  PROCRASTINATION:  We PUT OFF UNTIL TOMORROW.

a.  This may be our way of AVOIDING THE DIFFICULT or UNDESIRABLE

Acts 24:25  “And as Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, ‘Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee’.” 

2 Corinthians 6:2  “NOW is the time of God’s favor, NOW is the day of salvation….”           

 Ecclesiastes 12:1   “Remember NOW thy creator…..”     

My students at grad school invariably put off their research paper until the last few days!  I have been told that it takes 6 times as much energy to start a flywheel as to keep it going once it is moving!

b.  But this may also be a sign of  LAZINESS.

Someone has said, “The lazier a man is, the more he plans to do tomorrow”!

“How long will you lie there you sluggard?  When will you get up from your sleep?  A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest  -- and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man”  -- Proverbs 6:9-10

c.  The remedy for this “Time Bandit” is DILIGENCE  (Proverbs 10:4).  Diligence, not intelligence, is the ultimate key to long-term success in life (Proverbs 12:24, 21:5, et al).

2.  POOR PLANNING:   We fail to set our PRIORITIES.

John 9:4  “As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me.  Night is coming, when no one can work.”

a.  Do you realize that everything we read about Jesus, all that he taught and did, was accomplished within the short space of 3, maybe 4 years?  How was Jesus able to accomplish so much?  The Lord knew his time was limited and he knew what his mission was.  Thus he refused to be distracted or detoured.  Charles Hummel has aptly written that when we are governed by the tyranny of the urgent, we will fail to accomplish the important.  There is enough time to do the necessary.  We must have the COURAGE to say “NO” to the trivial.

b.  A crucial lesson of life:  DO YOUR  MOST IMPORTANT WORK FIRST (Proverbs 24:27).

c.  The remedy for this “Time Bandit” is to set our PRIORITIES (Philippians 3:13-14, Col 3:1-2).

We often run out of time for the same reason we run out of money – we didn’t budget it!

Back in the 1800’s, Charles Schwab, the president of Bethlehem Steel, presented Ivy Lee with a challenge.  “Show me a way to get more things done with my time, and I will pay you any fee within reason.” 

Lee handed Schwab a sheet of paper and instructed him, “Write down the most important tasks you have to do today and number them in importance.  When you arrive in the morning, begin at number one and stay on it until it is complete.  Recheck your priorities, and then begin with number two.  If any task takes all day, never mind.  Stick with it so long as it is the most important one.”

“If you finish them all, you probably couldn’t do so with any other method, and without some system, you would probably not decide which is the most important.  Make this a habit every working day.  When it works for you, give it to your men.  Try it as long as you like.  Send a check for what you think it is worth.”

Charles Schwab later sent Lee a check for $25,000, along with a note saying “It was the most profitable lesson I have ever learned.”

In five years this plan was largely responsible for turning Bethlehem Steel into the biggest independent steel producer in the world.  This concept helped Schwab make $100 million dollars!   [Source:  Kent Brand, “Making Time Work for You,” Biblical Discipleship Quarterly, Spring, 1987, page 25]

3.  PERSPECTIVE:  We try to live in YESTERDAY or TOMORROW.

Matthew 6:34  “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

a.  We cannot live in yesterday, weighed down with REGRETS and “MIGHT HAVE BEENS”:  it is gone forever (Philippians 3:13).  Will Rogers once said, “Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.”

We cannot live in tomorrow, anxious and worried about what “MIGHT BE”:  it is an uncertain promise (Proverbs 27:1, James 4:14).  Worry is only borrowing trouble, and any time you go to borrow trouble, your credit is always good.

Our only handle on eternity is TODAY (Hebrews 3:7).

Someone has said:  “Yesterday is history; tomorrow is a mystery; today is a gift; that’s why its called the present.”

For better or worse, the present is all we have.  We need to make the most of it!

The famous Roman poet Horace, who lived in the first century B.C. and died just a few years before Christ was born, wrote:

Happy the man, and happy he alone,

He who can call today his own.

He who, secure within can say,

Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

The remedy for this “Time Bandit” is TRUST and OBEDIENCE:  Are we willing to commit our tomorrows to God?  And, what are we doing with this DAY God has given us?

SUMMARY:

2021 is gone – as we assemble this morning, we mark the start of a new year.

I have only just a minute; 

Only 60 seconds in it;

Forced upon me, can’t refuse it;

Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it.

I must answer if I lose it,

Give account if I abuse it.

Just a tiny little minute –

But eternity is in it.