"When someone gets excited about a sporting event they are called a fan and their enthusiasm is generally viewed favorably by society. When someone gets excited about going to Heaven they are called a fanatic and their enthusiasm is generally viewed negatively by society.
Is there anything wrong with this picture? Let’s think about it. 100 years from now, how significant will it be that your team won or lost the sporting event? 100 years from now, how significant will it be that you and your loved ones chose to follow Christ and go to Heaven instead of rejecting His offer of Salvation and spending eternity in Hell?
Thinking the other direction, how significant today are the scores of the many games played 100 years ago? But, how significant are the great evangelistic campaigns of the last century to those now in Heaven from those meetings?
Obviously sports and games have their place. But reserving our greatest enthusiasm for what matters in eternity will redeem the time.
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"A thoughtful mother wrote the following poem about the battles she faced between being a “housewife” and being a mother:
Some houses try to hide the fact that children shelter there,
Ours boasts of it quite openly, the signs are everywhere.
For smears are on the windows
Little smudges on the doors.
I should apologize I guess for toys strewn on the floor.
But I sat down with the children
And we played and laughed and read.
And if the doorbell doesn't shine,
Their eyes will shine instead.
For when at times I'm forced to choose
The one job or the other,
I want to be a housewife,
But first I'll be a mother.
Whoever wrote that poem had her priorities straight. We can only attack so many problems in a day’s time, so we have to prioritize which ones to fight. A bulldog can whip a skunk, but it just isn’t worth it. Likewise, a housewife can battle to keep the house spotless but miss out on being a mom who redeems the time.
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"A man answered a help wanted ad from the local zoo. He was told the gorilla had died and they needed someone to wear a gorilla suit, eat bananas, and swing from trees till they could get a new one. He accepted the job and things went well until the afternoon when he slipped from a tree and fell into the lion's den. He immediately began screaming for help, when the approaching lion said, ""Hey keep quiet or we're all going to lose our jobs!""
That zoo symbolizes the way most people spend their time. They are pretenders, not with animal costumes, but pretending they will live in this world from now on. We all know we are going to die someday, yet does that have any real impact on how I will choose to spend my time today?
Death is often an unplesant thought. It's more comfortable in the short term to pretend it won't happen. But using today to prepare for eternity is the best way to redeem the time.
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"Tom’s pastor gave him some marital advice, “Give your wife a complement. Tell her she looks like the first day of a warm beautiful spring.” When Tom got home he told his wife, “You look like…uh…the last day of a long cold winter.”
If Tom had shifted his time frame just a little bit he could have gotten a much better result. The same may hold true for those who want to learn the discipline of early rising. Many of us set our clocks to wake us at the top of the hour, such as 6:00 or 7:00. But, there is a certain momentum that comes with disciplining ourselves to rise extra early.
If we adjust that rising time back just a couple of minutes to say 5:58 or 6:58 it gives us the satisfaction of having gotten up during the hour before. Instead of telling people you get up at 6, you can say I get up at “5 something”.
Any strategy that helps us rise early to spend time with God will redeem the time.
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