O spend your time as you would hear of it in the Judgment!
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 155.
Place a high value upon your time; be more careful of not losing it than you would of losing your money. Do not let worthless recreations, idle take, unprofitable company, or sleep rob you of your precious time. Be more careful to escape that person, action or course of life that would rob you of your time than you would be to escape thieves and robbers.
The New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations, ed. Mark Water, 2000, Baker, p. 1061.
Be careful how you spend your time: Spend your time in nothing which you know must be repented of.
To waste time is to squander a gift from God.
Quoted by Curtis C. Thomas, Practical Wisdom for Pastors, Crossway Books, 2001, p. 50
Be punctual and regular in all duties and engagements. Keep no man waiting. Be honest as to time, both with yourselves and others, lest you get into a state of chronic flurry and excitement; so destructive of peace and progress; so grieving to the Spirit, whose very nature is calmness and rest.
Follow the Lamb, 1861.
Redeem the time: much of your progress depends on this. Be men of “method and punctuality”; waste no moments; have always something to do, and do it use up the little spaces of life, the little intervals between engagements.
Horatius Bonar Follow the Lamb, 1861.
Oh, how precious is time, and how it pains me to see it slide away, while I do so little to any good purpose.
Accept the cost of good deeds in time, thought, and effort. But remember that opportunities for doing good are not interruptions in God’s plan for us, but part of that plan. We always have time to do what God wants us to do.
The Practice of Godliness, NavPress, 1996, p. 199. Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com, All rights reserved. Get this book!
There is nothing which puts a more serious frame into a man’s spirit than to know the worth of his time.
Quoted by Curtis C. Thomas, Practical Wisdom for Pastors, Crossway Books, 2001, p. 50
Jesus didn’t do it all. Jesus didn’t meet every need. He left people waiting in line to be healed. He left one town to preach to another. He hid away to pray. He got tired. He never interacted with the vast majority of people on the planet. He spent thirty years in training and only three years in ministry. He did not try to do it all. And yet, He did everything God asked Him to do.
Taken from Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung copyright 2013, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org, p. 50, Used by Permission. Get this book!
[Jesus] was busy, but never in a way that made Him frantic, anxious, irritable, proud, envious, or distracted by lesser things… Jesus knew the difference between urgent and important. He understood that all the good things He could do were not necessarily the things He ought to do.
Taken from Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung copyright 2013, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org, p. 54-55, Used by Permission. Get this book!
You can borrow time, but you can’t steal it… And the longer you try to borrow against sleep, the more your body (or God) will force you to pay for those hours – plus interest.
Taken from Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung copyright 2013, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org, p. 96, Used by Permission. Get this book!
Time itself is one more name for death.
Heaven: Your Real Home, Zondervan, www.Zondervan.com, 1995, p. 100. Used by Permission. Get this book!
People who don’t believe in God consider time an adversary. For them, the ticking of the second hand sounds like the stalking of an enemy. Each minute move them toward death. And everyone, whether rich or poor, tries to grab the hour hand and shove it backward.
Heaven: Your Real Home, Zondervan, www.Zondervan.com, 1995, p. 100. Used by Permission. Get this book!
Time in itself is really not the problem, but people who use it are. People who excuse their failures by saying, “I don’t have time” really are admitting to mismanagement of time.
The Making of a Christian Leader, Zondervan, 1976, p. 108. www.zondervan.com.
How often we hear, “I wish I knew how to manage my time better.” Rarely do we hear, “I wish I knew how to manage myself better,” but that’s really what it comes down to.
The Making of a Christian Leader, Zondervan, 1976, p. 101. www.zondervan.com.
Time, once spent, cannot be regained.
To the Young Pastor, Tabletalk, May 2008, p. 70, Used by Permission.
I think one of the cant phrases of our day is the familiar one by which we express our permanent want of time. We repeat it so often that by the very repetition we have deceived ourselves into believing it. It is never the supremely busy men who have no time. So compact and systematic is the regulation of their day that whenever you make a demand on them, they seem to find additional corners to offer for unselfish service. I confess as a minister, that the men to whom I most hopefully look for additional service are the busiest men.
The present is the only time in which any duty may be done or grace received.
A Journey to Victorious Praying, Moody Publishers, 2003, p. 184.
I believe that the most universal gift, the most universal blessing that comes from God’s common grace to humanity is time; time to repent, time to believe, time granted by God’s patience, God’s patience. He is patient because He is merciful.
Living on Borrowed Time. The sermon originally appeared (https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/42-181/living-on-borrowed-time) at www.gty.org. © 1969-2008. Grace to You. All rights reserved. Used by Permission.
We have only the time allotted by God, and none of us knows when it will run out. Every Christian life runs by His divine timetable and against His divine clock. We do not know how long He will hold open the door of a given opportunity or of our entire time of service. “Be careful how you walk,” Paul counsels, “not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:16). God gives us many things without limit – His love, His grace, and many others. But His gift of time is strictly measured.
2 Timothy, Moody, 1995, p. 196.
We cannot add time; we can only exercise stewardship over the time we are given.
The Conviction to Lead, Bethany House Publishers, 2012, p. 186, Used by Permission.
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The first thing we learn about time in the Bible is that God created it and that time is contrasted with eternity. Time characterizes creation, but the Creator is eternal. God is not bound by time, and He created time as a feature of creation that reveals His glory. This means that we must always understand time against the backdrop of eternity and God’s eternal purposes… We…are limited to the same twenty-four-hour day. But we are not limited to the horizon of earthly time. We want our lives to serve an eternal purpose.
Someone may ask, “But why should I rise early?” To remain too long in bed is a waste of time. Wasting time is unbecoming of a saint who is bought by the precious blood of Jesus. His time and all he has is to be used for the Lord. If we sleep more than is necessary for the refreshment of the body, it is wasting time the Lord has entrusted us to be used for His glory, for our own benefit, and for the benefit of the saints and unbelievers around us… Anyone who spends one, two, three hours in prayer and meditation before breakfast will soon discover the beneficial effect early rising has on the outward and inward man.
I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, all the friends I want to see. Our time is too short for pettiness, angry words, wounded feelings, crushed souls. Perhaps the measure of life is not in its length, but in its love (John Burroughs).
We must therefore affirm both that God has no succession of moments in His own being and sees all history equally vividly, and that in His creation He sees the progress of events over time and acts differently at different points of in time; in short, He is the Lord who created time and who rules over it and uses it for His own purposes. God can act in time because He is Lord of time (Wayne Grudem and Jeff Purswell).
Bible Doctrine: Essential Teachings of the Christian Faith, Zondervan, www.zonderan.com, 1999.
Procrastination, the thief of time, is one of the devil’s most potent weapons for defrauding us of eternal heritage. The habit of “putting off” is fatal to spiritual leadership. Its power resides in our natural reluctance to come to grips with important decisions. Making decisions, and acting on them, always requires moral energy. But the passing of time never makes action easier; quite the opposite. Most decisions are more difficult a day later, and you may also lose an advantage by such delay. The nettle will never be easier to grasp than now.
Spiritual Leadership, Moody Publishers, 1967, p. 98. Get this book!
Time lost can never be retrieved. Time cannot be hoarded, only spent well.
Spiritual Leadership, Moody Publishers, 1967, p. 94. Get this book!
A leader will seldom say, “I don’t have the time.” Such an excuse is usually the refuge of a small-minded and inefficient person. Each of us has the time to do the whole will of God for our lives.
Spiritual Leadership, Moody Publishers, 1967, p. 94.
As in the parable of the pounds (minas in the NIV; Luke 19:12-27), where each servant was given the same amount of money, we each have been given the same amount of time. But few of us use it so wisely as to produce a tenfold return. The parable recognizes different abilities; the servant with less capacity but equal faithfulness received the same reward. We are not responsible for our endowments or natural abilities but we are responsible for the strategic use of time.
Spiritual Leadership, Moody Publishers, 1967, p. 94.
You do not “spend” time with God. You “invest” it. Time alone with Him can be one of the greatest time savers of your life. It is in your time alone with the Lord that you can surrender the burden and the anxiety of the load to Him (Philippians 4:6-7; 1 Peter 5:7). You can also find the perspective to be delivered from the truly nonessential things that often seem important. You can find new energy and ideas as you “commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be established (Proverbs 16:3).
A Journey to Victorious Praying, Moody Publishers, 2003, p. 114-115.
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Lord, teach me so to conceive time as an unrepeatable gift that I might live my life serenely with Your values in mind so that my life is lived to the full.
Paraphrase of Psalm 90:12, Wisdom to Live By, Christian Focus Publications, 1998, p. 134. Used by Permission.
If there is no God, then there is no real significance to our lives, time simply becomes something to be filled and got through.
Wisdom to Live By, Christian Focus Publications, 1998, p. 126. Used by Permission.
Here is the Son of God, who in less than three years achieved far more than kings and generals had ever achieved in a thousand years, taking time out. Why? Well, He knew His needs and limitations – even He couldn’t work twenty-four hours a day seven days a week – and neither can we. But also He could have the confidence to do this because of His quiet, serene knowledge that His time was in His Father’s hands, that He wasn’t going to change the world by one endless round of activity, but by doing things in God’s time in God’s way.
How completely satisfying to turn from our limitations to a God who has none. Eternal years lie in His heart. For Him time does not pass, it remains; and those who are in Christ share with Him all the riches of limitless time and endless years. God never hurries. There are no deadlines against which He must work. Only to know this is to quiet our spirits and relax our nerves. For those out of Christ, time is a devouring beast.
Think about people who find themselves in religious ruts. They discover a number of things about themselves. They will find that they are getting older but not getting any holier. Time is their enemy, not their friend. The time they trusted and looked to is betraying them, for they often said to themselves, “The passing of time will help me. I know some good old saints, so as I get older I’ll get holier and better. Time will help me, purify me and revive me.” They said that the year before last, but they were not helped any last year. Time betrayed them. They were not any better last year than they had been the year before.
Rut, Rot or Revival, Christianity Today, v. 38, n. 3
If there are any regrets in Heaven, they will only be that we did not use our earthly time more for the glory of God and for growth in His grace. If this is so, this may be Heaven’s only similarity with hell, which will be filled with agonizing laments over time so foolishly squandered.
Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 1991, p. 139, Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com, All rights reserved. For more information please see the website www.BibicalSpirituality.org. Get this book!
Time appears to be so plentiful that losing much of it seems inconsequential. But money is easily wasted as well. And if people threw away their money as thoughtlessly as they throw away their time, we would think them insane. Yet time is infinitely more precious than money because money can’t buy time.
Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 1991, p. 137-138, Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com, All rights reserved. For more information please see the website www.BibicalSpirituality.org. Get this book!
The more scarce something is, the more valuable it is. Gold and diamonds would be worthless if you could pick them up like pebbles on the side of the road. Time would not be so precious if we never died. But since we are never more than a breath away from eternity, the way we use our time has eternal significance.
Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 1991, p. 134, Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com, All rights reserved. For more information please see the website www.BibicalSpirituality.org.