The clock of life is ticking. It always has been. In a week that included an inspirational church planting convene, a challenging evangelism conference, a spiritual formation training, a wonderful birthday celebration, friends arguing over paper cups, an unthinkable crime, and a focus on biblical justice – I realized that time is fleeting. Life is fleeting. The opportunity to take with us as many people to heaven possible is slipping through our hands like sand in an hourglass.
Time is God’s property. He is the clock keeper. Life is God’s property. He is the life keeper. While we think we can arbitrarily control just about everything in our days and years, the fact of the matter is that we cannot. We only get moments to live and share life with others because of God’s grace. When looking back at the past seven days, I have realized I don’t control much. If I could, I would not have changed some things in any way. If I could, I would have changed a lot of the events of life this past week.
So what do we do? How do we live knowing the clock is ticking? When we know we are one day closer to eternity than we were yesterday, how then shall we live? My answers to these ponderings are two-fold. We should love all and witness to all today. As a result, this means we should lovingly help people realize there are more important issues in life than coffee vessels. We should lovingly put out the challenge to multiply healthy churches and multiply disciples who multiply disciples. We must intentionally and verbally share our faith in Jesus more. We need to fight injustice more. We need to celebrate life more. And we need to simply be there for others and pray heaven down more.
The bottom line is that followers of Jesus Christ need to place our hope in Jesus throughout the events of life. The clock is ticking. Life is frustrating at times. Life is amazing at times. We need to focus on the fact that this world is not our home, we’re just passing through. So, when engaged in this journey, we: must worship Christ as Lord of our lives. And if someone asks about our Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. (1 Peter 3:15, NLT)
Dr. Jim Dunn is executive director of Church Multiplication and Discipleship for The Wesleyan Church.
