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 - October 28, 2013

Monday - A New Idea - Growth - in Discipleship

We are beginning a new series on “Becoming Like Family” as our online community begin to share the daily challenges with friends, and we begin to gather our larger community together. We want to have five main characteristics, and the first is to be bound together by some common learning experiences. In October I attended my university’s homecoming reunion, and reconnected with a lot of friends. Our friendships were forged through four years in a common learning experience. The same weekend, I went to a church where I’d done a student placement. There was personality, familiarity, and comfort there, too. We were gathered around a common purpose, to learn about and grow as followers of Jesus. We want Redeemer Church to be that kind of community. Hard in suburbia, commutning, but we have our own unique way of pursuing a common learning experience through mobile apps, social media, and our web site. Our next step is to become a network of groups, where we build strong relationships with existing friends and family members, where one of the things that binds us together is we are all learning the same things through discussion, challenge, encouragement and prayer. Question: Who was your best learning group or team? What made it so? Coffee Hours this Week: Have questions about the challenges, do you want to meet others exploring the same content, or connect with Ryan? Join us for our coffee shop drop-in this Wednesay, October 30th from 7:30pm-9:00pm at the Starbucks in the Ajax Chapters. Look for Ryan Sim in the drink line, or a Redeem the Commute postcard on a table. If you know in advance that you’re coming, please RSVP here http://bit.ly/1aHVTy2

Related Topics: Discipleship, Growth, Learning | More Messages from Ryan Sim | Download Audio

From Series: "Becoming Like Family"

This series looks at becoming “like family” with others learning to follow Jesus. We're exploring how the church is not a building, institution or event, but a community of people. It's important that explore what church means as we prepare to launch a new church in Ajax in 2014.

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