We’re recently started a new series called “reset”. In the first week, we talked about how Jesus makes it possible to reset all of life, giving us a fresh start in life that impacts every key area. We’re going to look at many of these in depth, and this week we see how Jesus resets our use of time.
There was a time in my life when I prided myself on never needing a day planner. I remembered everything I signed up for, and never double booked. That was high school. Ever since, I’ve found my time needed to be managed.
Through university, I started to rely on a day planner, an old fashioned spiral bound book. I got progressively busier, but could still say yes to pretty much anything I wanted. I would stay up all night getting things done if I needed to. I was young.
By the time I started working, I had to start making choices. I can only be in one meeting, one event, or one place at a time. When I first pastored a church, I was still working as a paramedic on the side, until I finally realized I simply didn’t have the time to do both things well. And still today, I find myself constantly choosing between demands on my time. It’s only escalated since having children.
I can go on. You probably can, too. Bottom line, unless we’re still kids, time is all about choices. It’s a limited resource – we can’t create it, we can only choose how to use it.
The Future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. ~C.S. Lewis
But what if you could reset your clock?
That used to be easy – whenever I’ve started a new job, I feel like it’s a chance to structure my time differently, within the constraints of set tasks, family and personal responsibilities.
But even then, it’s never clear what’s best. Read one thing that says “say yes to every invitation, you never know who you’ll meet” but then I’ll read something else that says I should learn to say “no” to more invitations to protect my sanity and family. Which is it?
With an extra hour, I don’t know whether I should work more, play with my kids, read the Bible, exercise, fix things around the house, or what. Someone will advocate that each one is most important. Time marches on.
Closely connected with goals, last week’s topic.
Question: What would you do with an extra hour in the day? Why? What would be your goal?
Reminder: The best way to grow spiritually this year is to join our Christianity 101 in the Cafe Course. Register for you and a friend today and come Wednesday night!
Read the Bible in Sync Today
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Why does it matter if God uses the poor? Why does it matter to us, if we’re not poor by the world’s standards, if this is a night that changes the poor? We may not be nomadic shepherds sleeping with the sheep in a field, but this still matters to us.
We are in spiritual poverty. It’s different from material poverty, but very important to recognize.
A sign is offered to us, from the poorest among us to the wealthiest, and it’s a poor baby in a manger. This comes to us direct from God, though his heavenly messengers. God helps us see our own poverty – spiritual and material – by his standards rather than our own.
When we see our own spiritual poverty compared to Jesus, we realize we need to get up and get to this baby, get to Jesus’ bedside just like those shepherds. A spiritually or materially wealthier group may not have bothered – they may have considered themselves just fine – but the poor are those God started with because they are those who know they need outside help.
When we have enough, we can’t hunger for food. It’s the same with God – if we consider ourselves spiritually rich and self-reliant, we won’t bother with reliance on God.
This is why, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor, or poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”
In the Christmas story, all of humanity sees its poverty, its spiritual poverty, compared to this divine baby. We realize we are unable to get back to relationship with God, and yet he comes to us anyway. We realize we can’t buy our way out of this debt to God (called sin), so someone else bailed us out and paid it off.
In the Christmas story, God helps us see our own poverty – spiritual and material.
In so doing, we realize the world’s standards are empty – we are all poor compared to God’s standards, and all need him equally. This can motivate us to extend to others, who we now recognize as spiritually poor themselves, the same generosity God has shown to us.
Challenge: Give to the spiritually and materially poor in your life! Toy drive, food bank, direct to a friend. Tell them why – because God has been generous and loving to you.
Reminder: We are reading the Bible in sync as one community - so check out today's reading here.
