Redeeming the time

I want to talk to you today about redeeming the time. Time is one of the most valuable commodities that we have. It’s more valuable than money. 

You can make more money but you can’t make more time. Queen Elizabeth on her sick bed said “I will give my entire kingdom for just one more day”.

When you woke up this morning, God gave you a present, it is called today. With that gist comes a responsibility. 

The scripture tells us to “Redeem the time” That simply means, don’t let it go to waste. Don’t live this day unfocused, unhappy, negative, and defeated. Make the most of each day. Things may not be perfect. You may have some obstacles but you can never get it back. If you will learn to see each day as a gift, you will live more intentional. You will realize that when you spend your time, you are spending your life. You can either invest it, or you can waste it.

Imagine every morning a bank deposited $86,400 into your account. That money was yours to use however you like. The only catch is that at the end of the day, what you didn’t use, you lose. It’s taken from your account. That will get your attention. You will be focused. You will make sure you took full advantage not to let one penny go to waste. Why? Because it is valuable.

It’s the simple principle with time. Every day, God gives us each 86,400 seconds. You can spend it as you like. You can invest it by being positive, hopeful, pursuing your goal or you can waste it by being disorganized, unhappy, negative, discouraged, and worried but the principle is the same. At the end of the 24hours it goes away. We can never get it back.

When we start to understand the value of our time and we see each day as a gift that it is, it helps us to keep the right perspective. We realize, there are some battles that are not worth fighting. You don’t have time to get into things that are not worth fighting. 

You don’t have time to get involved in things that are not between you and your God given destiny. If somebody has a problem with you, as long as you are doing your best doing what you believe God has put into your heart, with all due respect, that is their problem not yours. You don’t have to resolve conflict with every person. 

Some people don’t want to be at peace with you, that is just a distraction. And when you realize that time is limited, you don’t respond to every critic. You don’t waste your time trying to convince people to like you that are never going to like you. Is not everybody that can understand you, not everyone will give you the approval, but that’s okay. You just run your race.

When you are redeeming your time, you are not trying to keep someone happy that is not going to be happy. There are people that no matter what you do for them, it is not going to be enough. No matter how many times you rescue them, no matter how many favours you do, sooner or later, they are going to find fault with you and end up being unhappy.

But understand their happiness is not your responsibility. You should be kind, you should be respectful but your attitude should be, if you don’t want to be happy, that’s fine by me but you are not going to keep me from being happy. I know this day s a gift, and am not going to waste it trying to fix someone that doesn’t want to be fixed or trying to change somebody that doesn’t want to be changed. I will rather pray for you and move on.

Source : Joel Osteen
Pic: Google