On Whose Time?

Our world is trying to get more efficient.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. We must be willing, or at least I believe I should take stock of where I am “waisting time”. I use AI to help be efficient in many tasks. But, when we “save” time in one area we normally “spend” it trying to be more productive.

When efficiency is the goal we may lose sight of faith.

This is some of what is going on in the beginning of our chapter. The church is not called to be efficient but faithful. This does not mean we cannot learn from the business world and the common sense world. But faith sometimes runs contrary to both.

We are living in the final days.

The End times is fascinating and I believe we are in teh “end times”. Yet, you may ask why don’t I spend more time preaching on it? Right now, we can get so caught up on looking for the “signs” that we miss living in faith.

2 Peter 3:8 NIV

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

Psalm 90:4 NIV

A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.

We need the wisdom of the Lord!

As we open up our chapter, John 7, this is what we need.

The Feast of Tabernacles was filled with end time hope.

We will look more at this in the coming weeks as we tackle the message of chapter 7 but we must see this as part of the underlying foundation of Jesus’ interaction in teh first verses.

Who controls your time?

This is especially true of the discretionary time we have. Yes we have school, 7 hours a day, work 8-12 hours a day, but it is the other time.

God’s ways are not always our ways.

Jesus’ brothers and sisters say something partially smart—go do your stuff where everyone can see.

Reminder our goal is not popularity, influence or “success. It is faithfulness!

This is what we talked about last week. Our world pushes us to build platforms and to be popular and big, and to go leave your mark in this world. Not necessarily bad things but we must be careful.

Jesus’ timing was about God’s work.

In the Gospel of John when Jesus talks about “his time/my time” he is talking about the cross.

God’s timing is always perfect.

We must always remember this.

Time is the great equalizer.

This should be somewhat comforting to us. You may not be as rich or wise or smart as someone else but you have the same amount of time given. No I don’t mean we will all live to be the same age, but no one has more than 24 hours in a day.

To live in God’s timing means we must give up our timing.

This is the crux of discipleship. We must be willing to sacrifice our time for the sake of what Jesus wants.

Embrace Jesus & his timing.

This is our goal.