The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
Redeeming the Time
A Happy New Year to you. During the transition to the New Year a lot of online and magazine tutorials about New Year’s resolutions appear; “10 Ways To Get Rid of Belly Fat”, “12 New Year Resolutions That Can’t Fail”, and “15 Things You Can Do To Improve Your Marriage This Year”. At this time of year even people who don’t believe in God tend to recognize the fleeting nature of time and try, with resolutions, to correct those aspects of their lives they perceive to be out of alignment.
For the children of God, the Bible is our guidebook to keeping our lives in alignment through our relationship with God. Colossians 4:2-5 gives a concise tutorial on how we should live, not just this year, but every year:
“Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving…praying also for us that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ…Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.”
Using similar words, Ephesians 5:15-17 takes the concept of “redeeming the time” to a different, but related, level:
“See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.”
Basically, redeeming the time refers to not wasting the short and precious time we have on earth. We understand the will of the Lord by thorough, consistent reading and meditating on God’s Word, the Bible, which prepares us to “speak the mystery of Christ”, the gospel. We are universally called to share the gospel of the cross of Christ with those people that God puts in our way. In recent centuries evangelism has worked effectively in mass groupings of people hearing the gospel preached by men like C. H. Spurgeon, Billy Sunday, D.L. Moody, Luis Palau, and Billy Graham and his family. The attendees of those large evangelistic meetings had to be invited by someone, most likely by relatives or friends, people with whom they had a relationship.
Though massive evangelistic meetings continue to reach people for Christ, it is in observing and interacting with Christians in relational settings that bring the gospel forcefully into unsaved lives, one to one, where we stand as representatives of Jesus Christ to all around us. This is why we as Christians are called to live carefully and in such a way that we would have openings to share the gospel with others. To that end, 1 Peter 3:15 tells us to, “sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.”
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Update and Prayer Request: Dan had a PET scan yesterday and we will find out the results, i.e. how much the tumors have decreased in size, next week when he goes for his next infusion. Please pray for continued healing of Dan’s cancer and my ongoing dealing with insurance. It is also difficult for me to get around (long walks from parking lots into medical facilities) because of the toe that I broke last weekend. Please pray for healing on that as well.
