"“Accomplishing anything significant for God, yourself, or your family, requires leaving your comfort zone.” We’ve all heard statements similar to that. It is easy to say, but a lot harder to do.
That’s because leaving the comfort zone requires setting a goal to do so. And whenever we set a goal there is always the possibility that we might not reach that goal. Setting a goal and not reaching it is known as “Failure.” And since no one wants to fail, we often avoid the possibility of failure by staying in the comfort zone with no goals.
What we don’t realize is that by staying there, we don’t avoid the possibility of failure. Rather, we insure the certainty of failure. As Christians, we need to understand we “fail” to the extent we do not experience God’s best for our lives. Failure comes from accepting the status quo. A goal has been defined as “A planned conflict with the status quo.”
That’s why purposing to leave the comfort zone, through God-directed goal setting, will redeem the time.
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"Our family spends a lot of time on the road with our redeeming the time seminars. In 19 years of traveling with kids I've discovered there are some places it is better not to linger. One of them is the interstate travel plaza. We often stop there for gas and bathroom breaks, but if we linger too long, the younger ones will inevitably cave in to a desire for some impulse purchase which I won't allow.
Left to themselves, most children would quickly waste their life savings through impulsive spending. But, while most adults can recognize the foolishness of such behavior, we often succomb to impulse spending of an even more valuable commodity - our time.
How many times have you set out at the beginning of the day to accomplish some things that would really matter, only to reach the end of your day frustrated and asking ""Where did my day go?"" That happens when we miss God's plan by impulsively spending our time instead of redeeming the time.
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"Three military men were walking across the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. Suddenly, a commanding officer yelled to them, ""Drop!"" Two of the men immediately fell to the deck. The third man turned around to see what was happening and was killed instantly by an incoming plane.
All three men heard the same command; however, only two of them responded with instant obedience. Recognizing and immediately obeying the voice of the commanding officer turned out to be a matter of life and death for these men.
Similarly, Jesus says, ""My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life.” Every moment of delayed obedience is not only wasted time, but is time when we place ourselves in great danger by operating outside of God’s will.
On the other hand, instant obedience to God’s voice, insures that we are getting God’s best for our day and are being used of Him. Instantly obeying God is the way we redeem the time.
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"Each of my radio programs is about 170 words. Because I have only 59 seconds, I have to make every one of those 170 words count. I actually enjoy writing the programs because, as a time management instructor, I like the challenge of communicating the most important ideas using the fewest number of words.
Jesus did the same thing in Mark 8:36. In that verse, he asked a question that can be used as the basis for planning every hour of every day for the rest of your life. That short, simple, but infinitely important question was, “What shall if profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”
Think about that question. It has a way of probing us to examine what we are focusing on and giving our time to. In that one consice question, Jesus forces us to think beyond our short term goals of pleasure and wealth accumulation. He gives us a one sentence tool for identifying what will ultimately redeem the time.
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