How you use your time!

"I was tempted to ask you to sing 'When I survey the wonderous cross" I am not going to ask you to sing that. 'Were the whole realm of nature mine'. You wouldnt give Him it! Try giving Him an extra hour this week. Get out of bed at 5 instead of 7. Give Him an 1 hour every week and next week you will get another hour. You see you have to account for your time. So here you got three: You live 24 hours a day, you work 8 hours a day, you sleep 8 hours a day, what do you do with the other 8! Put that into years. You live 60 years: you sleep 20 years, you work 20 years, what do you do with the other 20!"-Leonard Ravenhill (excerpt from: Choosing Rather to Suffer)Man this really cut me.. its very true that we dont spend our time well in our day and age. We will do anything except get serious with God and pray and know Him. Ravenhill's preaching really opens your eyes to eternity and keeps those values in view. What are your thoughts on this subject.

Oh yes, the battle of the bed is a hard one.

Oh yes, the battle of the bed is a hard one. Agreed brother but I think Ravenhill is saying that we could even sleep 8 hours but then what do we do with the free 8 hours of our time awake other then working. "what do you do with the other 8!" the one that gets me is 20 years! Imagine it just that 1 hour or so of idle time spent everday watching your favorite soap opera or what have you and count that up over your life time it a year or more of time. I remember horatious bonar that great scottish preacher comment on a man that instead of spending 15 minutes idle between washing up and breakfast he would read something profitable. That man with 15 minutes a day read the entire octavious volumes or some other classic writing in 4 months. Now there could definely be a legalism to this and one must be careful of doing it for selfish ambition or conceit. We have been given time by our master and how we spend it is how good of a caretaker we are with what we have been given. The main reason I am raising this topic is that I am sure that most of us in this busy speed orientated age are doing things and filling our time with alot of things that will be considered rubbish in light of eternity. I am not saying dump everything but we could as Ravenhill said pray more give another 1 hour to God per day. Ravenhill says he could read hebrews chapter 11 every day of his life and not get bored of it. He weeps everytime he reads it! That is a sure way to stir us to use our time well! mabye thats something you can commit to do for a period of time or your whole lifetime, read Hebrews chapter 11 everyday!

"I remember horatious bonar that great scottish preacher comment on a man that instead of spending 15 minutes idle between washing up and breakfast he would read something profitable. That man with 15 minutes a day read the entire octavious volumes or some other classic writing in 4 months." Amazing. Sometimes we don't realize what we are capable of doing. Its easy to think that unless we see the immediate results of our actions then we wasted our time. Things like praying, studying the bible, witnessing, ect do not always have immediate results but they certainly are worth something in eternity. quote: "Now there could definely be a legalism to this"I agree. We need to check ourselves as to why we are trying to give our time to things that matter. Rather then doing it to love Jesus and to attempt to give Him what He deserves, we can fall into the trap of doing it to feel like a Christian and believe that weren't not Christians if we take some time to rest. Big difference between wasting time and resting time.