Harvesting Your Hours
3 For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.
1 Peter 4:3
I spent four hours talking to the phone company about my latest bill. Feels like such a waste. There are so many things I would have rather been doing in that time. Our language when it comes to time is instructive isn’t it. We say things like I spent, it cost me or I wasted etc. It’s a recognition that time is a finite resource.
God, of course, knows this. And he cares deeply about what we do with our time because it’s time that he’s given us. Sadly, all of us to some extent waste God’s given gift of time. Some of us, waste far more than others.
For Peter’s first audience, who haven’t grown up Christian, Peter reminds them of what life lived for yourself is. It’s wasted. Because it’s meaningless. In that sense that it contributes nothing to God’s purposes in the world. There will be no rejoicing in the new creation over years spent in carousing and idolatry.
But this then offers up the alternative. A life spent in bringing people to Jesus, in discipling and encouraging fellow believers, in prayer and hospitality. This is a life worth living. Because it makes a difference and because it’s in keeping with your design.
Is that what you live for? If you look at how you spend the time God’s given you, what would your life say? Now, I’m not saying every moment of every day needs to be spent encouraging/discipling people. No, time spent in rest/enjoyment if it refuels your tank is time spent well.
But is that what your doing? Is your rest/enjoyment for the sake of serving God’s purposes? Or is it actually more time spent on yourself? Something worth wrestling with.
Today:
Pray:
1 Peter 4:3
I spent four hours talking to the phone company about my latest bill. Feels like such a waste. There are so many things I would have rather been doing in that time. Our language when it comes to time is instructive isn’t it. We say things like I spent, it cost me or I wasted etc. It’s a recognition that time is a finite resource.
God, of course, knows this. And he cares deeply about what we do with our time because it’s time that he’s given us. Sadly, all of us to some extent waste God’s given gift of time. Some of us, waste far more than others.
For Peter’s first audience, who haven’t grown up Christian, Peter reminds them of what life lived for yourself is. It’s wasted. Because it’s meaningless. In that sense that it contributes nothing to God’s purposes in the world. There will be no rejoicing in the new creation over years spent in carousing and idolatry.
But this then offers up the alternative. A life spent in bringing people to Jesus, in discipling and encouraging fellow believers, in prayer and hospitality. This is a life worth living. Because it makes a difference and because it’s in keeping with your design.
Is that what you live for? If you look at how you spend the time God’s given you, what would your life say? Now, I’m not saying every moment of every day needs to be spent encouraging/discipling people. No, time spent in rest/enjoyment if it refuels your tank is time spent well.
But is that what your doing? Is your rest/enjoyment for the sake of serving God’s purposes? Or is it actually more time spent on yourself? Something worth wrestling with.
Today:
- What’s one way you’ve wasted some of your time in life?
- What’s one way you are using time wisely, for good?
- What’s one thing you might need to change about how you use the time you have?
Pray:
- Praise the Father that he is the giver of time.
- Give thanks for Jesus who made the most of the time he had to bring you to God.
- Ask God for His Holy Spirit to help you and others spend the time he gives you wisely.
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