LBS: Becoming an Effective Christian Part 3 "Put First Things First"

It's About Time

Imagine there are 30 hours in a day, you get 8-10 hours of rest, work only 8-10 hours a day, and you still have at least 10 hours to spend with your family and friends, take care of errands, and even spend at least an hour a day in devotion to God. The reality is that God has allotted every person, regardless of age or social status, only 24 hours or 1,440 minutes or 86,400 seconds every day till we die. We each choose how we will spend the time that is placed into our account every single day. We don't get to roll hours over into tomorrow if we don't use them today. For this reason
it is important to manage our time and learn to priortize. (Eph 5:15-17)

Habit #3 is managing our personal lives by putting first things first. God has left it to our free will to choose how we will use the time He gives us each day. If we are to become effective Christians, then good personal time management skills are essential. Time is a treasure. As someone once said, Time is money" . Jesus said that how you spend your time, will reveal where your heart is. (Matt 6:19-21,25.33-34) The things to which you devote yourself, the things you spend your time pursuing, that is where your heart is.

IN Habit #2 we discussed the importance of creating a personal mission statement. A mission statement will help you stay focused on what is truly important. Many times we allow the "merely urgent" to interfere with what is "truly important." Things that are urgent demand our attention and immediate action. While things that are truly important will contribute to our personal mission, our goals and they are even preventive measures. Let's look at an incident in the life of Christ that revealed two views on personal time management. (Luke 10:38-42)

Mary obviously had put spending time with Jesus at the top of her priority list. She knew how to put first things first. Martha also loved Jesus and spending time with Him was also at the top of her list (this is why she was frustrated). The difference is that she did not know how to put first things first. She allowed the merely urgent to interfere with the truly importatn. Often times, our worst enemies are not things that are bad but things that are necessary and even good. ( 1 Cor 10:23) Satan knows that spending time with Jesus, Bible study and even church attendance are important to us and that he would not be able to easily change our minds about this. So he uses subtle, indirect approaches to divert our attention and steal our time away from those things which are important in the Kingdom of God.

God wants to help you make the right choices when managing your time, so He has left Word on how we should prioritize.

Find out more at our next LBS. This Wednesday.