February 25, 2019 ● 19-15
Ps. 146:2: I will praise the Lord while I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
Ps. 146:4: His spirit departs, he returns to the earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.
John 9:4: We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.
2 Cor. 6:2: for He says, “At the acceptable time I listened to you, and on the day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is “the acceptable time,” behold, now is “the day of salvation.”
Eph. 5:15-16: Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.
I am a person of lists; I use grocery lists and ‘to do’ lists. Normally, every day I simply write out what I plan on accomplishing for the day, helps keep me focused. Some days I get everything on my list accomplished, other days I don’t get much of anything accomplished. The reason why some days more gets accomplished than others is simple: life happens. While I can write out a list of what I want to accomplish, the truth is I have no idea what is going to happen in the day that may affect what I want to do or prevent me from doing what I want to do.
One of my daily prayers is that God would help me be a good steward of the day. A steward is simply a manager of someone else’s goods or property. The time God gives me every day is a gift. You and I have something in common with the richest man in the world – we only have twenty-four hours in a day; no one can buy one single minute more of time. If we could buy one more hour in a day, we would want two. I have to ask myself, am I being a good steward of the time God has given me?
I heard an illustration one time that I have used before that really brings this issue time into clear focus. Suppose you had a magic bank account, and at midnight every night your bank account had $86,400 deposited in it (the number of seconds in a 24-hour period). You could use that money to buy whatever you wanted to; but here is the catch: if you use it all up before the twenty-four hours were done you could not ask for more, and if you did not use it all in that period you could not carry it over to the next day. At midnight your account would resent to $86,400.
The reality of all this is sobering. The only day I can serve God is today because today I have my being. I can only praise God, witness to the grace of God, preach, serve, and whatever else I want to do for God in this day because today I have my being. I may think of what I want to do, but when I die my thoughts die with me, they perish. The lost person may be thinking of trusting Christ but until they do they are still lost. They can die thinking about trusting Christ but when they die apart from Christ those thoughts perish along with their souls. This is the power and importance of today.
I want to encourage you to allow God’s Word to equip you to be a good steward of every day for the glory of God and for the purpose for which He calls and saves you. Use these verses of Scripture to help you be a better steward of the precious gift of time:
Ps. 39:4 / Ps. 90:12 / Prov. 2:1-6 / 1 Pet. 4:10