Wind the Clock…Make the Most of Today!
(This week’s devotions are based on Sunday’s message: Win the Day…Wind the Clock – LISTEN HERE)
I’m growing to appreciate the phrase used in this series:
“Yesterday is history…tomorrow is a mystery…so win the day!”
If you are like I am, I can spend a lot of time looking in the rear view mirror not always appreciating the past, but looking at decisions, activities, or tasks that I wish I could change, do differently or just have a mulligan for that day or season. I can spend time thinking about the future and desiring a certain outcome for myself, my family, our church, and many other things.
With all the focus on the past and future, I forget about living today.
Really living. Like engaging in the events, the relationships, and tasks to enjoy them, take them in, and see the importance of the moment of the day rather than being frustrated at what I’m not getting done or the time I need to spend on something that interrupts what I think I want to do.
The Apostle Paul wrote this:Ephesians 5:15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.
Make the most of every opportunity. He’s not saying you have to DO every opportunity, but whatever opportunity is in front of you, make the most of it.
What does that mean? And how does it affect my day?
First it’s living as a wise person. King Solomon defined wisdom as the “fear of the Lord.” Each day I’m living with “fear, love and trust in God above all things.” I am seeking to leverage every opportunity to glorify God, connect someone to God, or be strengthened by the Lord. The Apostle Paul spoke of God’s wisdom in contrast to human wisdom. For me this means seeing the day through the lens of God’s ways, his word, his worldview. My day is not going to be defined by the secular news, the career politician or the doomsday narrative. My day is going to be defined by the Lord.
Second, make the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Scroll your favorite news feed. How many of the headlines speak of good vs. how many reflect on evil that has occurred. I would venture about a 9-1 ratio of good news to reporting on evil. So of course the world needs a beacon for love, joy, peace, kindness, etc. Every opportunity we have in a day is there, set up by God, to show the love of God in what we do, in what we say, and with whom we interact.
We don’t have time to waste on foolish things or on evil things.
But we do.
And those are the regrets of the day and the regrets of the past. Guilt can prevail when we realize we didn’t make the most of every opportunity, but rather have missed a lot of opportunities.
Which is why I am glad Jesus redeemed the day. Galatians 4:4 But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5 to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.
Jesus stepped into time to make the most of every day he lived to ensure the mission to pay for sin and assure me of forgiveness was accomplished. Certainly we have to repent of missed opportunities and wasted days, but we have one who redeemed the day and made it perfect before our heavenly Father and gives us a reason to fall asleep in forgiveness and wake up motivated by grace to make the most of the opportunities God gives today!
So look forward to the opportunities God sends your way today and with his wisdom and grace in mind, win the day for the glory of God!
Apply: What opportunity have you missed that you regret? Share it with the Lord and hear him speak forgiveness over you and the missed opportunity.
Prayer: Lord, thank you for redeeming each day by the life and death of Jesus. Empower me by your Spirit to leverage every opportunity you present with wisdom grounded in you and goodness driven by your grace. AMEN.
Wind the Clock…God made today!
(This week’s devotions are based on Sunday’s message: Win the Day…Wind the Clock – LISTEN HERE)
“This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
Sounds good, right?
But what about a day I got in a car accident? What about a day I nearly failed my semester exam? What about the day my parents told me they were getting a divorce? What about the day that the doctor looked at me and said, “You have cancer.” What about the day…
Admittedly some days are hard to face or look back on and say, “Yippee! This is an awesome day that the Lord made…I am so glad it happened!”
It’s hard to look back at the days that have tough, tragic, heartbreaking events and still say with the Psalmist, “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
Psalm 118 provided context around the reason we can rejoice in the days that the Lord makes and gives to us.
Here’s just a few of the reasons:
- We are loved. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. (Psalm 118:1)
- The Lord is with me. The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? (Psalm 118:6)
- The Lord is trustworthy. It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man. (Psalm 118:8)
- The Lord is my strength. The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.
- The Lord will deliver me and give me life. I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the LORD has done. (Psalm 118:17)
- The Lord answers my prayers. The Lord is my Savior. I will give you thanks, for you answered me; you have become my salvation. (Psalm 118:21)
- The Lord is MY God. You are my God, and I will give you thanks; you are my God, and I will exalt you. (Psalm 118:28)
The list could go on. Entering any day with the Lord and these truths about him certainly gains the credentials for a day in which I can rejoice and be glad! Consider this:
If I have a day where people don’t treat me well or I feel unloved by the people around me, I have a God who loves me.
If I have a day where the challenges seem overwhelming and I’m not sure how I’m going to get through, the Lord is my strength.
If I have a day where I live in regret of past actions, I have the Lord who is my Savior.
If I have a day where people scammed me or deceived me with lies, I have a God who is always trust worthy.
Again the list could go on. The reality every day is a moment in time when we get to experience the very real presence, promises and power of God. He intersects those moments. He gives meaning to those moments. He gives perspective to those moments.
And when he’s involved in every moment, I can rejoice and be glad…every day!
Apply: Which promise from Psalm 118 resonates with you today?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for being who you are and being by my side every day. Remind me of your power, presence and promises so that every day I will rejoice and be glad in it! AMEN.
Wind the Clock!
(This week’s devotions are based on Sunday’s message: Win the Day…Wind the Clock – LISTEN HERE)
Tick…tock…tick…tock…
The rhythm of a clock is barely heard today with digital everything. A vivid memory of childhood was the clock we had in our living room. The “tick-tock” was very noticeable and the reality was, if dad didn’t wind the clock, it would stop running.
The sound of the clock was a reminder that time was progressing. Every tick was replaced with a tock and the ticks of the past could never be relived. Once time had passed, it was gone.
Time is a precious commodity. We have a limited amount of it. The challenge is we don’t know how much of it we have.
To win the day, we want to better understand time and our relationship with it. Why? Time is not just a practical part of each of our days, it is part of our life of faith as well. How we manage the time we have is really a spiritual battle that wages in us. Time is not the problem, how we view and use it can be.
Consider this. Time was the first thing God created. God exists outside the bounds of time, yet the result of the first thing he created, light, was the establishment of a pattern that is called day. “There was evening and there was morning, the first day.” (Genesis 1:3). While “light” is often, and rightly so identified as the key thing that was created on day one of creation week, we should not pass lightly over the reality that the first day, or period of time, was also created. From that point on (contrary to some who want to make “day” a long period of time) a period of darkness and light have defined a day, a period of time. God wanted his world to have marks of time and period of time. On day four, God not only created our current light sources (sun and moon), but he put the heavenly lights to “mark seasons and days and years.”
Genesis 1:14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
Time was such an important part of God’s creation that two of the six days had time elements created and set in place.
Why would an eternal God create time?
Time was the framework on which creation would operate. Life would have rhythms and cycles that would guide the life of humanity and creation. Life would have age and maturity not only defined by experience but by time.
Time would identify spiritual rhythms as God established the six days of work and then a day of rest structure that has and still guides us in our work-faith balance.
Time with its boundaries would lead us to yearn for that which was eternal. While days defined man’s existence, the reality of eternity was imprinted on them as well. The temporal was distinguished from the eternal.
Time would allow the realization of God’s blessing and grace on a daily basis.
Time would be another reality that is defined and orderly, a gift and blessing for people to enjoy.
Time is a created gift of a gracious God.
Apply: Why do YOU think the eternal God created time? Email your thoughts!
Prayer: O eternal God, thank you for the creation of time and the blessing it brings to me. Thank you for today. AMEN.
Cut the rope of fear!
(This week’s devotions are based on Sunday’s message: Win the Day…Cut the Rope – LISTEN HERE)
I am 6’8” and in my previous ministry was asked on occasion to come in the preschool and kindergarten rooms to aid in the acting out of David and Goliath. Guess who I got to be…dead every time!
The familiar Bible story of David and Goliath certainly is an account of the power of God at work…in the heart of and through the actions of David. The details of the account are a vivid reminder of how fear can create timidity and timidity keeps us from acting boldly and living in confident trust.
Here’s the highlights of what happened:
1 Samuel 17:10 4-7, 10-11, 16 A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. He was over nine feet tall. 5 He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels; 6 on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. 7 His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels.
Then the Philistine said, “This day I defy the ranks of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.” 11 On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.
16 For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand.
For forty days…over one month the Philistine defied the army of Israel and challenged one from among them to fight him in a winner take all contest. Was there boldness or courage in the ranks of King Saul? Nope. The size and brashness of Goliath instilled dismay and terror in the hearts of the Israelite ranks.
How long would this fear have paralyzed the army? Who knows.
Because David showed up and through David, God showed up!
David was sent to check on his brothers and bring them supplies. As he was in the camp of Israel he experienced the taunts of Goliath. But David’s response was different than the army of Israel. He didn’t dismay. He didn’t give in to terror. He responded with trust!
1 Samuel 17:32 David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”
- 33 Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth.”
- 34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”
David was willing to cut the rope of fear because he had the power and presence of God on which to rely. God had been with him in the past. In his mind it was a very real truth that God would help him take out the giant Philistine.
And God did.
When the Spirit of God replaces timidity with trust, we can cut the rope of fear and move forward into the challenges of life with the confidence that the Lord will give us the victory!
Apply: What fear is preventing you from moving forward? What promise of God overcomes that fear and changes your timidity into trust?
Prayer: Lord, with your help, lead me to cut the ropes of limitations, human security and fear and live in your possibilities, the security of your promises, and the confident trust in your power. AMEN.
Cut the Rope…Experience the Rewards!
No Risk…no reward.
Taking a risk carries consequences. When you meet with your financial advisor, many have a “risk tolerance” survey that asks you to determine what type of financial roller coaster you can tolerate. Some take a high risk portfolio that allows the ups and downs to be much steeper. Others take a low risk portfolio that mitigates the down hills, but the up side is not as steep either.
Every risk has a potential for loss. But usually eventually a risk brings a reward greater than if one hadn’t taken the risk.
Elisha Otis took a risk. If his contraption failed at the World’s Fair in New York, his fledgling company would have been out of business. However, he was willing to take the risk and it paid off. The Otis Elevator Company is still in business world-wide today.
The same is true in our life of faith.
We can play it safe. We can keep our faith to ourselves and rarely have conflict or challenging conversations with people. We can talk about it at home and keep it private in other places.
But with low risk, there is little opportunity for reward.
When the Word remains silent, the opportunity for the Spirit to do big things diminishes.
For example, the disciples huddled together for 10 days after Jesus left the earth (to be fair, they were told to do this). They had kept to themselves and a few interactions with Jesus after the resurrection. You don’t hear of new converts, but you hear of a small group just over 100 staying together in Jerusalem. You hear of their aversion to risk as they stayed locked up for fear of the Jews.
Until the Spirit of God empowered them to take a risk, a calculated step of faith.
Peter, who denied Jesus 50 days earlier, stands up and addresses the crowd with clarity and conviction. The same people that crucified Jesus were there. They could have turned on him. But the risk of speaking up was rewarded by 3000 gifts of God’s grace…3000 hearts were changed and brought into the family of God through baptism.
But it didn’t stop there.
The boldness and result of the one risk turned into a willingness to daily take a risk by meeting in the temple courts, openly discussing and proclaiming the truth of Jesus. Again, the hostility against Jesus hadn’t fully evaporated. It was still very real. But the risk taken turned into a reward given.
Acts 2:46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Daily the Lord added a reward of grace because of the believer’s willingness to take a risk for the Lord.
It’s not always safe. It’s not always easy. But the risks we take for the Lord return with gracious rewards of grace. Take a risk…see how the Lord rewards it!
Apply: What risk for the Lord has been on your heart? Ask the Spirit of God for boldness to act on it!
Prayer: Lord, forgive me for when I play it safe with my faith for fear of repercussions. Grant me the power of your Spirit to take risks of faith to be turned into rewards of grace for the growth of your kingdom and the glory of your name. AMEN.