Time for the Kingdom (4)

See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Ephesians 5.15, 16

Kingdom time?
Most of us would be surprised, I think, to discover how much of the precious gift of time we invest in activities other than seeking and advancing the Kingdom of God.

One reason this happens is that we have never learned how to prosecute our daily lives from a Kingdom vantage point. The work we do, our relationships at home, taking care of the everyday business of staying healthy and managing our affairs – for many believers, indeed, perhaps most, these are not typically looked upon as Kingdom activities. All these concerns fall somewhere outside the bounds of the Kingdom economy – perhaps in the getting-and-spending economy of our secular and materialistic age.

Do we even consider whether the Kingdom of God has anything to do with how I do my work, take care of my yard, converse with my friends, or use my free time? That is “non-Kingdom” time for most believers, with the result that hours and hours of time each week, given to us by the Lord for the purposes of advancing His Kingdom, are simply lost to merely temporal and fleeting ends.

“Kingdom time” is, for most of us, church time, when I’m with my Christian friends doing my Christian thing.

Here there is a need, if we are to make the best use of our time for the Kingdom of God, for more focused study in Scripture, in order to understand how the mind of Christ teaches us to approach our daily tasks and activities for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

The Bible is given to teach and equip us for every good work (2 Tim. 3.15-17). Every work appointed to, every expenditure of energy we undertake each day, should be a good work, a work in line with the Kingdom economy of God. Paul instructs us to conduct every aspect of our lives as unto the Lord, rather than to men – even, merely, ourselves (Col. 3.23, 24). But we’ll never understand or begin to practice this teaching – and thus, we will continue to squander Kingdom time on fleeting activities – until we give ourselves diligently and continuously to the task of learning how the Christian worldview shapes our thoughts and practices in every area of life, all the work we’ve been given to do in these last days.

Kingdom time all the time
A second reason we waste so much time is that we don’t follow Paul’s command to walk circumspectly concerning how we use our time each day. For the most part, we don’t pay the kind of attention to the Lord’s gift of time as the Lord does.

Paul says we must not use our time like unwise people, people who have no regard for how the wisdom of God or seeking the Kingdom plays out in the time of our lives. They who are unwise rarely think about God and His will; they have their own ideas about how to use their time (Prov. 14.12). As believers in Christ and citizens in His Kingdom, we are called to live as wise people, trusting in the Lord with all our hearts and in all our ways acknowledging His Lordship over our lives and time (Prov. 3.5, 6; Eph. 5.17).

So we need to develop a means of paying close attention to how we use our time, in order both to live wisely in the time of our lives, and to be sure in our own hearts that we have made the most of the moments granted us for the work that is before us each day.

I used to teach a time management course for businessmen, and one of the activities I required of them, early on in the course, was to keep track of how they used their time in 30-minute blocks for a week. I gave them a card marked off in seven daily segments, each divided into 30-minute blocks, and instructed them to write down their activities as they completed them each day. Then, at the end of the day, I told them to tally up the wasted time from each day.

Typically, my students would scoff at the idea that they wasted any time. They were busy people, forward thinkers, men of focused action! They didn’t waste time!

Except, as it turned out, they did. Hours and hours of it, every week. Amazing what a little circumspection might reveal about the time of your life.

Track your time
We’re no different from them. It might be an interesting activity for you to track your time in 30-minute blocks for a week or so, to pay attention to whether you’re living as a wise person, using your time for the progress of the Kingdom, or like the unwise person, frittering away God’s precious gift.

You might be surprised – or chagrined – at what you discover.

We have to do something to determine where the time of our lives is going. And we need to keep this up continually. Time is too precious a gift, and it is given for too specific a purpose, for us who know the Lord not to make the best use of all our time for the glory of Christ and the progress of His Kingdom.

For reflection or discussion
1.  What does it mean to “prosecute our lives from a Kingdom vantage point”? What are some of the obstacles we have to overcome in order to do this?

2.  What would you suggest as a workable practice for paying more careful attention to the way you use the time of your life each day? Would it help you to improve the use of your time if you were accountable to someone for the way you use time? Why or why not?

3.  What warning does Paul include in Ephesians 5.15-17 concerning the way we use our time? If we don’t use our time consciously and carefully for the Lord and His Kingdom, what could happen to the time of our lives?

Next steps – Preparation: Are you up to the challenge posed above? Download our free worksheet, “The Time of Your Life,” and take a look at how you are using God’s precious gift. Share your results with a friend.

T. M. Moore

This week’s ReVision study is Part 2 of a 10-part series, “The Kingdom Economy.” You can download “Time for the Kingdom” as a free PDF, prepared for personal or group study. Simply click here.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.