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“God is everywhere. He is always with us. And His reputation is to determine the character of our reputation: we are to seek to live in His Name, meaning that His reputation is to be valued above all. He is to be the One Whom we are to emulate in the greatest way, so that we shine His reputation accurately to others as His true representatives (2 Cor. 5:20).”
“The very goal for redeeming the time is having God be what we think of when we get up and when we lie down, when we are out in the way, and when we sit (Deut. 6:7-9). There is good reason why the Bible has, in the parable of the soils, those who hear the Word, but who are then choked-out by the cares and worries of the world! This battle is as a battle against death. If it characterizes our lives, then we are likely ones being choked out by these weeds. For believers, we must fight against submitting to the cares of the world—as if we are to be ruled by the worries and anxieties and business of this age—and work in all that we can to trust in Christ and in God’s provision…”
When we realize that our time and life is not our own, but God’s, and therefore that all of our time needs to be submitted to Him, we naturally ought to concern ourselves with not wasting that time. We are always “on the clock,” so to speak. God does desire that we rest and relax as we have need. However, the spans of our sanctified lives are His, and therefore we will have to one day give an account for how we spent it.
I will offer some biblical principles for redeeming the time. They will help give us a way to sort through all the things that we do in a given day, week, month, and year. The goal is that we go over every item that we have on our schedules, and assess each one individually according to these principles. The goal would be that we are redeeming the time for God, ultimately putting every bit of the time that we spend on this earth into its proper subjection to our Lord and Master.
“The point is that we do not have our own work to do. Rather, we all have only His work that He has commissioned for us to do. Remember, we were bought for a price. Our life is not our own, but is fully commissioned for the service of God, in whatever station God has allotted for us. So, we can be mechanics, janitors, house-wives, or ministers, and all be fully-engaged in the work of God in our common, regular life.”
By regularly having family worship, we can more naturally and easily bring biblical teaching into every area. We do not need to “inject” God or the Bible into regular life, but have this as the paramount thoughts and meditations throughout the day. God’s instructions come to govern everything that we say, do, and think, making this a regular part of our daily rhythm.
Like with prayer, we must set aside time explicitly for the purpose of reading and studying the Bible (meditating, or chewing on, and digesting the Word). As with prayer, we ought to jealously guard this time, recognizing that God’s priorities take precedence over everything else, and, in fact, set the course for every area of our lives. The only way to have a well-ordered life (redeeming the time) is for us to regularly and actively be in God’s Word.
We saw in the last devotional that we have a biblical mandate to redeem the time. This is a comprehensive command that pursues walking in the light, and is contrasted with living as the world lives. Despite being comprehensive, there are many ways that this command is practical. It literally refers to going over every area of our lives and heart, actively testing them with Scripture, and then seeking to conform them to what we learn is pleasing to God.
In a way, redeeming the time is as seeking to conquer our hearts for the Lord, according to the grace that we have in Christ. We can either be active or passive in this pursuit. However, be warned: is anyone is a genuine believer, then they will seek to be active in this pursuit, whether they are consciously aware of all that entails or not. This is because, to not do so is what characterizes those still in darkness, who have not yet seen the light of Christ or His gospel.
