Ephesians 5:15-16
“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”
Paul now speaks to something that is incredibly important to everyone: Time. The reason why he tells us to look carefully and walk wisely is so that we will “make the best use of the time.” The word that he uses for “make the best use” is exagorazo, which is a marketplace term that means “to purchase or buy up. To redeem.” It is the same word that Paul uses in Galatians for Christ redeeming us from the curse of the Law.
The King James Bible translates this passage “redeem the time,” which quite accurately communicates what Paul is admonishing us to do.
Every day we make decisions about how to invest our time. We can give our time to the things of the world, or we can give our time to the things of the kingdom of God. We can spend our time guided by the impulses and desires of the old nature, or we can invest our time with intention and purpose guided by our new nature in Christ.
The point Paul is making—the image he is painting—is that in order to invest time wisely we must first “look carefully” and then we must “redeem the time.” The easy thing is to follow our impulses and get caught up in the popular activities and habits of our culture. The natural thing is to spend our time the same way and on the same things as everyone else.
But Paul is saying, “Don’t spend your time like everyone else. Stop and think before you give your time to something. Look at your time from a kingdom perspective. Redeem the time. Buy it back from the sin nature and from the world, and then re-invest it in things that really matter.”
This is enormously practical advice.
Time is a critical resource. Unless time is managed well, very little else will be managed well. How we invest our time determines our effectiveness.
Time is also a fixed resource. Once it is spent we can’t recover it. Nor can we store it up for future use. Each of us already has all the time we will have. Our effectiveness is determined not by how much time we have, but by what we do with the time we have. We must be wise and effective stewards of the time that God has given us.
Today is a gift from God; you will not get a second chance at it. Invest wisely. “This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24)
More tomorrow …
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