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20th August 2024
TuesdayReflection
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Brian Bill offers
Senior Pastor of Edgewood Baptist Church
Redeeming the Time
Ephesians 5:15-21
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While there are many reasons to gather with God's people each week, one of the main motivations is because you don't want to miss what the Holy Spirit is doing here!
I'm reminded of the young boy who was home sick on Palm Sunday.
His dad returned from church with a palm branch which made the boy very curious, "Why do you have that palm branch, dad?"
The dad took advantage of this teachable moment and explained, "When Jesus came into town, everyone waved palm branches to honour Him, so we each got one to help us remember that."
To which the boy responded, "Oh sure, the one Sunday I miss is the Sunday that Jesus shows up!"
I'm confident that Jesus shows up each weekend because He is always here, and He is the head of this church.
As we've said before, the church is God's Plan A, and there is no Plan B.
We shouldn't be surprised because we've been praying Psalm 85:6 for the past couple years:
"Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?"
Could it be happening right now?
Is God awakening His sleepy church?
Lord, make it so. Do it here, Lord.
Since you revived others in the past, do it again right now, and let it begin with me.
Read Ephesians 5:15-21
"Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.
The word "carefully" means to be skillful and to be on guard, to look very closely so as not to stumble.
It has the idea of exactness, precision, and accuracy.
We're to walk according to the Word and will of God.
This is a present imperative, meaning we are commanded to continually pay attention to how we're living.
We're to be "constantly careful."
The same word is used in Hebrews 3:12 to warn about unbelief:
"Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God."
Too many of us are spiritual sluggards, living sloppy lives.
Instead of fighting sin and staying on the right road, we take exit roads all the time.
Someone has said the tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.
We see this in verse 16: "Making the best use of the time, because the days are evil..."
This is also translated as "redeem the time" and has the idea of buying up a bargain.
On Thursday, I saw that all the Easter candy has been discounted to 50%.
A worker told me that it would eventually drop to 75% and then to 90%.
If I wait too long, it will all be gone.
Paul is telling us to buy up the bargain of time right now, before it disappears.
There are two Greek words for time.
One is chronos, which refers to the passing of moments, days, months, years, decades, and centuries.
It's how we measure time.
Sadly, most people are just going through the motions, wasting time, or passing time.
Some are like the passengers on a plane who heard the pilot give this message:
"We have lost our position, folks, and have been flying rather aimlessly for over an hour.
That's the bad news.
But the good news is we're making very good time."
The other word is kairos
It's the idea of an opportune moment, also translated as "the appointed time, a fixed, or special occasion."
It refers to a period of opportunity which is open for a while and then closes.
It's not clock time, but kingdom time.
Are you ready to move from living a chronos life to a kairos life so you'll focus on living each moment as a supreme moment?
William Penn once said: "Time is what we want the most but what we use the worst."
Obviously, only God knows the number of days we have left but we are called to live with an acute sense of a countdown according to Psalm 90:12
"So teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom."
To number means to "weigh" or "measure" our moments so we live them for God's glory and for the good of others.
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About Keep Believing Ministries
"Equipping and encouraging people to keep believing in Jesus"
We are called to spread hope in a world that lives without it.
Brian Bill
came to Christ in college and is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
He's currently the Senior Pastor of Edgewood Baptist Church in Rock Island, Illinois.
He has served as a pastor for many years and is on the board for Keep Believing Ministries.
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