How Do You Spend Your Time?

In Greek thought the here and now was of the utmost importance. "Seize the day!" because now is what matters, tomorrow you might die. American culture has this same philosophy of making the best life now. What does the Bible have to say on this topic?

Colossians 3:23-24 tells us what God says about how we should spend our days, "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ." This focus is not on making the most of your today in order squeeze what you can out of this world. God is telling us to look at the next world, the eternal one, spend your days working for that.

Seize the day is serving self not the Lord Christ.

1 Peter 1:24-25 emphasizes idea of a short life, and what achieving glory in this life gets us, "for 'All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.'” The word of the Lord is what we need, not Greek philosophy which would say be like the temporary dead grass. Psalm 90:12 states, "So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom." This echos the understanding that our lives in this world are short and we should be thinking about larger issues than the gaining flesh pleasures for the day. We need to give control of our lives to God.

Planning out our days is futile.

James 4:13-17 "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit'— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin."

It is a twisted idea that living for the brokenness of this world is making the most of life.

As God gives us grace, mercy, and life we need to honor Him with our lives. Those who choose to "Seize the Day" and look for the pleasures of a sin filled world will end up with nothing. As Christians we need to be encouraged as we see the world falling apart that our future is not here.

Make no mistake: We do live the best lives we can when we live for God and His Glory, and it lasts forever. There is hope in that.

Peace to you.