In the beginning, God created that creature called time. God is a God that is eternal, but in order that His creatures might have an orderly life, God created time. As David wrote: time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away. That stream is the stream of life which begins at conception and carries us to death. Through life, God gives us many privileges-privileges to walk in those good works which He has prepared for us. The means God uses to bring these privileges it time.
Ephesians 5:15 and 16: “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time because the days are evil.” Our calling as children of God, therefore, is very clear. We may not waste that time as a spiritual fool does, whose life is filled with eating and drinking and merriment; but we should grasp every minute of our life and fill it with the things of God’s kingdom.
Often times we, too, behave as spiritual fools because by nature that’s what we are. We are faced with alternatives in our life as to what to do with our time. Our human nature tells us to read that magazine we picked up yesterday, but our soul tells us to read the Standard Bearer. What shall I do tonight, watch T.V. or finish my homework. Our walk in life is more than just a couple of questions like these. Our walk is a whole outlook. We must constantly make God the center of our life, desiring this with our whole heart, mind, and soul, and confirm it with our speech and actions. It is an occasion for humility and repentance to God when we find our pleasures outside of the sphere of the church of Christ.
There is only one way to find the strength to do this and that is through prayer-prayer to God for the strength to fight that old man of sin and to keep us from falling into the hands of sin. Only through the grace of God can we be sorry for these weaknesses; and God uses this as a means also to strengthen our faith. That is our only comfort as children of God. His only Son died for us that we might have that eternal life and when we are faced with these evils we can only turn to the cross and pray “Father, forgive me.” Then we are truly blessed by being able to say: My only comfort in life and death is that I am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ: who, with His precious blood, hath fully satisfied for all my sins.
Our life here on earth is a preparation for our life in eternity. That is why we must serve God and use those God-given privileges. “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” Psalm 90:12. We must put on the armor of God and walk circumspectly, not as a fool, but as a regenerated child of God. We must desire and seek the communion and fellowship of one another especially as we are one in public confession. The truth of God’s Word lives in our hearts, so we desire one another’s fellowship. We go to society so that we may study the Scriptures and enjoy Christian fellowship. We read the Beacon Lights and the Standard Bearer so that we may be edified. We attend church because we are thirsty and hungry and need to be fed.
Our time is not our own. It is God’s time and when we forget this, we can only pray “Father, forgive,” and the rich blessing of God is to know that that prayer has certainly been heard and answered.
Let us, children of God, prepare ourselves for that eternal glory that we, too, may say with the psalmist David: “As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness unto children’s children.” Psalm 103:15-17.