Happy Happy New Year

Well its a brand new year !  If the Lord should not come back this year and He gives you another year of life here there are 365 days ahead of you, or 8,760 hours, or 31,536,000 ticks of the clock !  That’s a LOT of time and while its true the older you get the faster it seems to fly by its still a LOT of time AND a lot of opportunities for you to live for the Lord and influence others for Him.

Paul wrote this to us in Ephesians 5:16, “redeeming the TIME because the days are evil.”    He was using a real estate term when he used redeem meaning one should wisely invest or buy up the opportunities around us just as a businessman sees the advantage of acquiring property to pad his holdings.  Time is a precious commodity that only God can give. A rich real estate mogul cannot purchase or manufacture time but the Lord graciously, and I do mean graciously, gives it to YOU.   How ungrateful we would be to treat with contempt a very special gift given to us by a loved one yet when we squander the opportunities He gives us or we don’t spend time reading His Word  aren’t we guilty of the same?

Now I’m not saying you can’t have a little time to unwind or rest, Jesus did and God even instituted a sabbath.  What the verse is saying is time is meant to be used selflessly and FOR Him above all. That is how it is utilized the wisest and when it is it is then invested eternally, for what you do FOR Him will stand and be richly rewarded.  It is ironic how in our country and time we have so many wonderful time saving devices and yet we tend to waste so much time. They save us time but then we turn around and waste what was saved !  This year think about the time you have been given and how  you can use it in even wiser ways FOR His glory and the year will turn out to be a truly happy one !!!