SALT & SALT: Dealing with the pressure of time (ii)

By: Ms. Joyce R. Aryee

No one knows about day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.  Be on guard!  Be alert!  You do not know when that time will come.  It is like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.  Therefore keep watch because you do  not know when the owner of the house will come back - whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn.  If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping.  What I say to you, I say to everyone: Watch! - Mark 13:32-37. Discipline Lifestyle

Discipline is never easy. Time is often wasted because we do not have the discipline to follow our convictions.  If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, then you must cultivate a disciplined lifestyle which is a combination of your genuine hunger for God and a dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit.  He will persevere through us if we give Him our opportunities and our devotion.  Our willingness and obedience along with God's enabling are essential.   The Lord has settled many of our priorities in His Word.  We do not have to decide whether to go to church, minister to our family, or serve others.  The scriptures clearly underscore their importance.  Once we base our convictions on God's Word and His principles, the rest of our priorities will come into place in time.

The Example of Jesus
Think about the life of Jesus.  He lived thirty-three years, but thirty of those years were spent growing  up  and being in a carpenter's workshop.  Ponder that for a moment.  The son of God, the King of kings, the Prince of Peace quietly, diligently laboured in a small town, hewing, sanding, and shaping pieces of wood.  That was His life until the day He laid down His hammer and chisel to begin shaping lives into the image of His Father.  Yet that part of His life lasted only three years.  During that brief, incredibly short time, He did all the Father asked of Him.  Jesus taught multitudes, but He also had time to have dinner with various people, spending as much time in homes as He did in crowded villages.  He talked with the poor, blind beggars, and hated tax collectors,  He visited women at the well and publicans and sinners at meals.  What was His secret?  And in the early morning, while it was still dark, He arose and went out and departed to a lonely place, and was praying there - Mark 1:35.  And after bidding them farewell, He

 
departed to the mountain to pray - Mark 6:46.   And it was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God - Lk. 6:12.  And it came about that while He was praying alone -  Luke 9:18.

Time Alone With God
Jesus had all the pressure of saving a sinful world.  He had only three years to fulfill His public ministry; but we never read that Jesus rushed to Bethany or 'scurried'  to Jerusalem or 'dashed' to Nazareth.  His life was always measured to a diving tempo - even in the swirl of a crowd screaming for His crucifixion.  The key for Jesus and the key for us to do the will of the Father is spending time alone with Him.  If, for Jesus, prayer could not be substituted, how can we think there will be another route for us?  When we get alone with our Father, the peace and quiet of the Holy Spirit settles us and assures us.  He saturates our hearts with the Lord's presence and stills our minds with His calm.  There, in the solitude, God speaks through His Word by His Spirit -  changing this attitude, convicting us of that sin, compelling us to this action.

We Have God's Wisdom
As we commit our days and resources to the Lord, we have His sure guidance.    As we cast our plans and schedules before Him, we have His wisdom.  We look to Him to order our thoughts and direct our steps, not knowing the twists and turns the day will take.  The wisest thing we can do to relieve the pressure of time is to spend time alone with the Lord Jesus Christ.  After all, He is the all-knowing, all-wise One who knows our end from our beginning, who knows all about us and our future, and who can orchestrate our days.

Eternity With Christ
We will all give an account one day of how we invested our time on earth.  We will spend eternity in one of two places - heaven or hell.  If you have not made that decision to spend that decision to spend eternity with Christ, I encourage you now to trust Him for the forgiveness of your sins, believing in Him as the Son of God who died in your place.  Only then will time take on real meaning.  If you are a believer, I encourage you to examine your life and establish godly priorities so that you are ruled by Him, not by others, then commit to spending quality time alone with the Lord Jesus Christ each day.

Set Priorities
Faithfulness to God begins now in the time dimension.  We do not wait until we are with Christ in heaven to became good stewards.  Handling time, therefore, is not so much a matter of time management - finding the right kind of datebook or scheduling format - but of managing ourselves.  That means setting personal priorities.  What is more important when you start the day; an extra hour of sleep or an hour alone with the Sovereign Lord of the Universe?  Establishing priorities involves decisions concerning what is most important in light of your relationship to Jesus Christ.

When people are not in church on Sunday, it is not because they do not have transportation.  They have prioritized their lives apart from serving and worshipping the living God.  Once we consider and arrange our priorities, then we must have the discipline to order our lives according to those guidelines.

*   This is an article by Dr Charles F. Stanley and was culled from IN TOUCH Magazine, May 1990.

 
STAY BLESSED!
14 th October, 2011
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