“Walk
in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. 6 Let
your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how
you ought to answer each person” (Col. 4:5-6).
Every year at Midwest Bible Church we
not only start the year with a prayer emphasis week, but also with a specific
spiritual emphasis (theme) for the year. As the Pastor of Midwest Bible Church,
I strongly believe that one of my great responsibilities is to cast vision.
However, the vision that I believe that God wants me to cast is first and
foremost a clearer vision of the magnificence of God.
Often what Pastors ask other Pastors around
lunch tables at conferences is, “What is your five year vision for your
church?” There's nothing wrong with setting goals and having plans. But unless we
have a big and growing vision of who God is, our motives, methods and means in
regards to seeing the “vision” realized can go south real quick.
I once heard
Pastor Adrian Rogers give a response to the “vision” question that has stayed
with me ever since. He shared that once, while walking through the facilities of
Bellevue Baptist Church, which at the time had 25,000 members, he ran into two
Pastors that were touring the facilities. One of the Pastors asked Pastor
Rogers, “When did you get a vision for all of this?” He responded, “God never
gave me a vision for all of this. He gave me a vision of Himself and this is the result.”
One of the results of growing in the
grace and knowledge of God is a deep conviction about not wasting time. I’ve
heard people say and I’ve said it myself in the past, “I’m just killing time.”
This phrase should not be in the vocabulary of Christians. Time is life. When we are killing time we are killing life. Killing life should not be one of
our New Year resolutions in 2019. And it will not be, if we have a clearer
vision and right conception of God. When we have a right view of God, we
recognize that God is the source, sustainer and satisfaction of life. We see
life as a gift from God. Every day we awake we acknowledge that this new day is
a day that the Lord has made—it’s a day that has been gifted to us by God—it’s
a precious day (Psalm 118:24).
Time is life and life is time. Paul,
whose greatest desire was to know God, (Philippians 3:10), understood this.
Therefore he desired and exhorted other believers to make the best use of the
time that’s been gifted to them by God—to not waste time. How can we make the best use of our
time?
There are a number of things that we can say about making the best use of time from the
scriptures. But one thing that God has been leading me to focus on this years
and I believe wants me to challenge the church to focus on is investing time in
people. Once again, time is precious. It’s precious because time is life and
life is a gift from God. Therefore time is not only precious, but people, who
possess life, are precious. So the best way that we can use our God given time
in 2019 is by investing our time in people. More specifically, use the time that we have to share the love of Jesus with others by our words and actions. The
Apostle John wrote, “Little children, let us not love
in word or talk but in deed and in truth” (1 John
3:18). What is John saying here? He’s saying, don’t just talk the talk. Walk the walk. Live it
out.
Now, here’s an important question, "Can we share the love of Jesus with everyone in the world?" The answer is no. God
doesn’t expect us too. However, we have been strategically placed where we are by God to share the love of Jesus with those in our circle of influence.
We are to share the love of Jesus (invest time) with insiders. In other words, we are to invest time building up our children and spouses in the Lord. In addition, we are to invest time doing good to insiders who are part of the family of God. The Apostle Paul wrote, “So
then, as we have opportunity [time], let us do good to everyone, and especially
to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10).
Furthermore, we’ve
been called as Christians to invest time on outsiders. Paul wrote, “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders,
making the best use of the time” (Col. 4:5). The Apostle Paul is
exhorting believers to seize every opportunity that God gives in relation to
those who are outside of the faith—in relation to those who have earthly
life, but don’t have eternal life—who don’t have Christ who is life (John 14:6; 17:3). Seize every opportunity to do what? To share the hope of Christ. This was Paul's passion so much so that in addition to looking for these opportunities, he asked others to pray for open doors to share the hope of Christ (Col 4:2-4).
Now we
are not called as Christians to meet everyone’s (insiders and outsiders) physical and spiritual needs. It’s impossible. For this reason, Paul exhorts believers
to “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders.” Wisdom
is to understand what the will of the Lord is (Eph. 5:15-17). We need to seek God's wisdom, and look for the doors of opportunities that He opens to invest in people.
God is not expecting us to meet every need in the world. He’s calling us to avail ourselves of the opportunities that He makes available. Seize them. Don’t waste them. Wake up every morning thanking God for the precious gift of another day. And in addition, ask Him to help you to make the most of it, to open up doors of opportunity for you to share the love of Jesus, to share the hope of the gospel, to meet the needs of others to the glory of Jesus.
We are not called to meet everyone else’s expectations. We don’t have enough time to do that. But if we seek God’s wisdom, we will discover that He has given us enough time each and every day to do everything that He wants us to do, while we leave the results to Him.
Prayer: Father, I praise you for the
precious gift of time. Open my eyes more fully to see time as precious because time
is life, which is a gift from your hand. Help me to see that, because life is precious,
people created in your image are precious. Therefore, grant me wisdom to invest
the precious time that you’ve given me into the precious people you’ve placed
in my circle of influence for their eternal good and your glory.
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