Regardless of how time was used before, becoming a follower of Jesus means we use our time differently.  We are probably used to spending time on ourselves, but we now want to now make time for two new activities:

First, Christians are called to devote Time for God

Yes, God is present everywhere, all the time, but we want to have specific time laid aside for God.  Jesus did this himself:

Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone…   (Matthew 14:22-23 ESV)

This isn’t the only example, there are many examples like it. Today, people focus time on God by reading his Word, the Bible. A key part of our community is that we base all our teaching on the Bible, and encourage you to read daily.  Secondly, focus on God in prayer.  We encouraged you to start this in our Becoming like Family series, but don’t forget!

Second, Christians are called to devote Time for others

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:36-38 ESV)

Jesus dedicated enormous amounts of time to serving the needs of hurting people around him.  Following Jesus means we are meant to focus our lives outward as well.

If all this sounds really busy, you are probably thinking we have to add these to our schedules.  These are not additions, but are meant to replace, refresh, renew, or as we have named this series, reset our use of time.  Some of the things we used to do were wasting time, and now we are invited to redeem that lost time.

What will you let go?  Budget your time.  Think of it as a limited resource, sine we can’t create time, and can only manage it.

Challenge: Watch your schedule next week.  Write down how much time you spent on each activity, then categorize it as me, God or others.  What’s out of balance?

Read the Bible in Sync Today

Ryan Sim - January 27, 2014

Monday - A New Idea - Reset Time

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?

From Series: "Reset"

When our computers get bogged down and unmanageable, we know to hit a reset button to simply start over. Wouldn't a reset button be great in life? We know it would be complicated, with all our responsibilities and routines to consider, but imagine the freedom and refreshment of a new start in life! What would you do differently? What would you pay more attention to, and what would you ignore? How would you avoid getting bogged down and broken again? The great news is, in coming to earth as Jesus Christ, God has begun to "reset" our universe, our world, and even us. We're invited to start over with him, in what he calls his kingdom. We're invited to start a new life with a clean slate. What gets wiped clean, and lived differently, when God resets our lives? We'll explore how God resets these key areas of our lives: Reset: Goals Reset: Time Reset: Money Reset: Work Reset: Body & Food Reset: Sex & Marriage Reset: Family Reset: Compassion Reset: Nature Reset: Society Reset: Death Join us for the next several weeks, and invite God to reset your life.

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