Ephesians 5:17
17 Wherefore [dia] [touto] be ye [ginomai] not [me] unwise, [aphron] but [alla] understanding [suniemi]
what [tis] the will [thelema] of the Lord [kurios] is. KJV-Interlinear
17 So
then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. NASB
So, do not be stupid with
the use of your time in this life, but be smart.
And what does that mean?
Most folks think that
they use their time wisely, or at least most of it, but do they even know what
wise use of time is?
In your life, you will sleep for eight hours of the
day, work probably for eight hours of the day, commute for perhaps a couple of
hours of the day, and if you are lucky enough to have those last six hours to
yourself, you will find something to do at home in the form of chores and
tasks, even hobbies or entertainment to fill out your day.
Most folks do not have
those leisure hours as they seem to get blended into the many other activities,
work or responsibilities that we all have.
Most folks spend their time simply surviving through the day so they can
get to the next day and repeat the same.
Life is tough, and life is
not fair. With folks around the world,
the dreams and plans of youth, are never achieved.
When young, you have
dreams and plans and hopes of success and achievement, and a fulfilling life.
When you are old, you
just wonder, what happened?
And the biggest single
problem in looking at all of this is, that people focus their eyes on this life
only, and do not focus on the spiritual side of their life. And, if they even consider a spiritual aspect
to their life, they use something that they come up with or follow some belief
system, both of which are false.
The end result is failure
in life, and needless to say, the misuse of waste of the time that God gave you
for your eternal preparation.
Your life has two
components. The first is your carnal or temporal life in this world, where in
you grow up and go to school, work at a job, retire and die. And then it is all over.
That is an over
simplification of course, but that is exactly what you have when you ignore or
do not pursue your spiritual life, a legitimate spiritual life.
This world has nothing to
offer you, no matter if you are dead poor, or filthy rich. At death, both are the same, and both will
end up in the Lake of Fire, if unbelievers, or in heaven but without reward for
believers in Chirst. In either case the
epitaph will be, ‘Here lies a wasted life.’
While you will live in
this world for several decades, most likely, that is the least portion of your
entire life. Eternity follows this life
and that will last forever, making it the bulk of your life. This earthly life
then is really insignificant, except that it is during this life that you
prepare for the next.
So, in effect, you have
this blink of a life now, to prepare for your forever. And it is that blink that needs to be used
wisely, lest your forever be lost.
That means that your
priorities need to be correct. And your
priorities need to line up with what God wants for you and from you. And that means that we all need to sit back
and ask the tough question, ‘Is what I am doing, right, in so far as my getting
prepared for eternity?’
And the answer is just as
easy to understand, but more difficult to attain, however. And why is it difficult to attain? Because, people do not want to do things Gods
way, they want to do things their way.
And that is the biggest
barrier to a successful life, a successful spiritual life.
You need to know that you
are what you think. You are not what you
eat, not what you wear, not what you accomplish, not where you live, not what
you have. What you think is what you
are. And we can expand that to say, what you think is who you are. For you are a product of your thinking.
If you have a jerk
attitude then you will be a jerk in life.
If you have a pleasant attitude, then you will be pleasant in life.
But your priority is not
personality, it is spiritual preparation, correct spiritual preparation.
Your thinking is a
product of what you know. That should be
obvious.
And what you know, is a
result of what you learn.
We all learn by
experience, by trial and error, by some form of an educational process, and so
forth.
But there are two types
of information, out there, that control all of what we know. The first is the academic information of
school, work, and experience. The second
type of information is Bible doctrine.
In the first type, all
that we learn enters into our brain and soul by way of our five senses. We can see, feel, taste, smell, and
hear. And then we have our intellect
that correlates all of these things. And
that applies to our learning the Bible, too.
Anyone can read the Bible.
Unbelievers can read the Bible, but it does them no good as an
unbeliever. So all of the academics and
experience, and experimenting in world will never advance your spiritual life
even the tiniest bit.
Academics and experience
are not the answer and not the priority for the spiritual life.
Bible doctrine, or the
content of the Bible, the information contained therein, is the source
information for your spiritual life. But
again, you have to assimilate or learn it in the proper fashion, before it will
be usable and beneficial to you and your life.
That gets us to the
function of the spiritual life, itself.
First and foremost, in
order to have a spiritual life, you must become a member of Gods family. You must be saved. Without that you have no
spiritual life.
Being saved is the
easiest thing, ever. All you need do is
believe in Jesus Christ. ‘Father I believe
in Jesus Christ.’ Think those six words
and you are saved. It is as simple as
that. The Bible calls this being born
again, because when you first believe in Christ, God creates within you, a
human spirit, and into that spirit He places eternal life.
(this study is continued
tomorrow)
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