Thanksgiving Sunday: What time is it?
Ministering: Pastor Bayo Fadugba, Dominion Chapel, Houston. Sept. 5, 2010.
View photo album of the service
I’m here to challenge you to think on “What time is it?” By this I don’t intend that which your watch tells you, but the time you are in in destiny. Do you know if it’s your noon, morning or evening?
Ecclesiastes 3:1 provides some guide on this subject. We’ll look at three translations:
“For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven” (NLT).
“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven:” (NKJV)
“There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven” (NASB)
This verse is subject to diverse interpretations. It could mean:
- There’s time for everything we want to be
- When we come to the end of our race on earth, there’s no excuse for failure or becoming less
- We all have the same time for everything since we all get 24 hours every day
- Life is in seasons
- There’s only sufficient grace for specific period of time
So do you know what time or season of life you are in? I break down the time of life into three stages:
- 1-30 years: Young Age
- 30-50 years: Middle Age
- 50-80+ years: Old Age
Could you say for sure what stage you’re truly in? Are you late or early? Are you doing the things you’re supposed to be doing when and how you’re to do them? Are you sharing appropriate testimony? Or is your testimony actually a decade, a year, or a month late?
In the course of interacting with the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God Worldwide, Pastor E.A. Adeboye on “keeping to time”, he said something profound:
God honors agreement and only releases grace for the appointed time of the agreement.
That means if you’re late, grace may be unavailable! This makes me understand that doing the right thing at the wrong time may amount to nothing. It means we need to know what God has ordained for a particular season of life and be caught smack in the middle of it.
I did some research on the ten richest people on earth and discovered all were investors; no one worked for anybody else and not a single one was born again! These were extremely time conscious people who invested their time wisely. I equally understand God’s plan is for us Believers to be the best and not foot mats; to excel in all things. But I came to the conclusion that we don’t seem prepared to carry the weight required yet; we lacked dedication. If God’s plan to transfer wealth to us is to come to fruition, we must have the needed dedication to time.
How are you investing your time? We all have equal time and time is the currency of life. 86400 seconds are issued to every one each day, with no balance or overdraft allowed and no drawing against tomorrow. What we do with these determines how much value we put to them and what results we get. I’m a lawyer today, because I invested time in college in the past.
TIME stands for: T- Treasure; I- Invest; M- Manage; E- Enjoy
Treasure
Time is valuable. To appreciate a second, consider a split second decision that made my family and I survive what might have been a head-on collision with an 18-wheeler. The value of a month? How about a baby born a month too early who is now dead because of that! Brethren time is treasure and waits for no one. You are not too young to dream and grow big or too old to dream again! There’s a seed of greatness in us all if only we’ll make the most of time.
Invest
Jesus invested time, reason we’re reaping the harvest today as His followers. There are 168 hours a week, and researchers have figured that only 35 of these is discretionary. We can tell what is valuable to you, if we know what you do with those hours. What we’re today for good or bad is a product of how we invested time yesterday. Please invest your time wisely!
Manage
A man once taught a lesson by carrying out a jar experiment. He filled a jar with rocks and asked if it was full. Observers responded in the affirmative. Not satisfied with their response, he filled the same jar with fine sand, and after that with water.
The lesson?
Unless you fit the big rocks into your jar first, all others may not fit. Take care of your big rocks and there will be room to fit the fine sand and water of life! Spend time developing yourself, and understand that each moment is a gift that needs to be well managed. If you don’t manage it well, others will on your behalf. Set goals, write them down and work on them on a daily basis. Identify time wasters even if that be people and mange them well. You need to be purposeful and stay in motion even in slow periods of life.
Enjoy
Having treasured, invested, and managed time wisely, you need to enjoy. Spend time with family and have happy memories. And please plan rest into your time. And make your time count for God.
Ecclesiastes 11:9 makes us understand why that is important:
“Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.”
