Most of us feel like we’re in a real-life Pac-Man game. Our responsibilities are constantly chasing us, threatening to gobble us. While engaged in many things, we know that we must carefully manage our time and then quickly scurry off in another direction. The real trick is knowing where to place our energies and for how long.
The Lord knows we are often conflicted with multiple responsibilities that vie for our time: work, parenting, extended family, house or yard work, paying bills, grocery shopping, schooling, laundry, cooking and exercising for health reasons. These are only the beginning. Then, we also add optional interests such as sports, social outings, volunteer organizations, hobbies, and leisure activities. The Lord knows that managing our time and responsibilities can become difficult to balance. To help us put everything into perspective, He gives us one prominent principle to remember in Ephesians 5:16. We must be continually “redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” The word “redeeming” means “to buy.” In other words, we must be wisely buying, or using, the time God has given us for things that will matter in eternity. This must be among our very top priorities! There is a very limited amount of time to reach our children with the truths of God’s Word, including salvation, while their hearts are tender. We must buy back, or seize, this opportunity. We may have only a small window of opportunity to speak to a lost soul at work before we, or they, are suddenly gone. We must buy the opportunity. If our local church is to survive, it needs our regular commitment to be involved in ministry however we can. We must buy the time to serve in our church while our health still permits us to do so. The truth is that our life will near its end, even in old age, in what seems like a flash. We must buy the opportunities to leave a spiritual impact and earn eternal reward. How tragic that, for many, life will be squandered in selfish, temporal, forgettable things that are of no eternal value. At the Bema Seat we will wish we had chosen to redeem our time with spiritual priorities.
Like sands in an hourglass, our time is running out and may end soon. A wise believer once said, “Only one life, Twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” Look at your life carefully. Starting today, what can you do to better redeem the time?