Do you find time to be a friend or an enemy?

Most of us have said, “If only I had more time.” However, if we had more time would anything change? We long for immortality when we don’t even know what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon. If God said that He was going to let us live on earth forever, it would mean nothing if we continue to live unproductively. The truth is more time would not help most of us because time isn’t the problem; we are the problem.

“Lord thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” These verses teach that God is eternal.

However, these verses also teach us who are mortal how we should occupy our time. Do you see it? It is the part that says, “Lord thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.”

If the Lord is our dwelling place, then our time will be spent doing the things that matter to Him. Less priority will be placed on the temporal and more on the eternal.

When God gave us life, He also gave us time. Are our lives counting for God? Many people live a selfish life. However, living in the dwelling place of God is selfless. Charity “seeketh not her own.” A life lived in the love of God will be a life lived for others. Recently, I heard Jack Mays give a sermon on the radio. He said, “We will esteem a ball player and elevate him as something because he can bounce a ball and throw it into a hoop. We will pay a lot of money to go see him play, and someone will pay him millions for doing it. Yet a widow woman who is trying to work and raise 4 children is not esteemed and maybe even looked down upon with disgust. And the thought of giving her a little money to help her with her burden is looked at as horrific.”

Many people — even Christians — aren’t even aware of the opportunities around them to serve others all because the “me” is what is important. Life in the dwelling place of God is using our time helping others.

Here is another verse that will help. “For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.” Do you see it? It is “because ye belong to Christ.” Everything we do, we do it because we know Christ. Many go through their time here and never think of Jesus. They just do things driven by pride, self, flesh, lusts, and personality. Listen, there must be a Christ attachment to our works. This simply means that in all that we do we will do for the glory of God. Our faith in Christ will touch all of life.

Conclusion: Time has nothing to do with time. It has to do with the kind of person we are going to be in time. The Apostle Paul understood this when he said, “ For me to live is Christ.” If we will live in the dwelling place of God and do all things with a Christ attachment, time will no longer be an issue, and God will do with us “exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.”

What productivity.

James Kearns is pastor of Bald Knob United Brethren Church.