So then, be careful how you walk, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. Ephesians 5:15-16

 

I have to admit. These verses are so convicting when I stop and take a deep dive into how much time I have and what I’m doing with that time. Over and over, I’ve heard someone who is a little too overjoyed tell me, “We all have the same amount of time, 24hours in a day; it’s what you do with that time that matters.”
I’m not disputing the truth in that statement. I’m convicted by it.

 

The Apostle Paul was writing to the Ephesian believers. This was well before the inventions of the mind and time-sucking machines that we readily surround ourselves with, yet the encouragement is timeless. Sure maybe the Ephesian believers didn’t spend four hours on Social Media when they could be spending time with their loved ones. Wasting time, however, is nothing new and just has morphed forms of the same entrapments.

 

The theme in these two verses is something that Paul says in most of his other writings. Here is what he wrote to the Colossian church. “For this reason we also, since the day we heard about it, have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;” (Colossians 1:9-10)

 

Verse 16 is the kicker in these verses in Ephesians. “making the most of your time, because the days are evil.” Some might say time itself is an evil villain. The Bible here tells us that the motivation for us making the most of our time is because the days are evil. Evil is all around us, and it is increasing in our society. We are seeing not just a Post-Christian America emerge, but an Anti-Christian movement that continues to grow in secular America.

 

So with all that said, how do we make the most of our time? Well, the answer has been the same since Paul wrote these words and before. In the Old Testament, the prophet Micah put it this way, “He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8) The question mark is because Micah phrased it rhetorically.

 

Jesus said it this way, “And He said to him, ” ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GODWITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOURNEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

 

The reality is we have plenty; the Bible tells us how to walk carefully, be wise, and make the most of it. The question and the command of this passage is, are we doing it?

 

Humbled and Convicted myself, Pastor Mike