GOD's Way
Gloria Adams
Time Management God’s Way
Copyright © 2007 Gloria Adams
ISBN 978-1-886068-16-2
eBook ISBN 978-1-886068-67-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2006938883
Christian Life • Religious and Inspirational
Personal Growth • Faith • Self-Help
Published by Fruitbearer Publishing
P.O. Box 777, Georgetown, DE 19947 • (302) 856-6649 • FAX (302) 856-7742 www.fruitbearer.com • fruitbearer.publishing@verizon.net
Cover design by Carmelle Scott, Longtail Graphics
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNA- TIONAL VERSION, Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers. All rights reserved.
Other Scripture references are from the following sources:
The King James Version of the Holy Bible (KJV), public domain.
The Amplified Bible (AMP), Copyright © 1986, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Bible Publishers. Used by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher or author, except as provided by USA copyright law.
Printed in the United States of America
Special Thanks ...
To my sister, Jacquie Martin, for typing most of my manuscript and encouraging me to trust God to start my assignment-to write this book by faith.
To Rev. Lonnie Henderson for your review of my manuscript to make sure that I was rightly dividing the Word of God for sound doctrine.
To Sister Angie Terrell for your precious time to edit my manuscript as a first-time writer, encouraging me to continue to write.
To Carmelle Scott for capturing the vision for the cover of the book.
To my parents, James and Mary Harris, for encouraging me to become all that God is calling me to be in Christ Jesus.
To my daughters, Selena Adams and Shante Carter, for allowing me to share my faith with you and to model Christ before you.
To my son-in-law, Aaron Carter, and my granddaughter, Zoe Carter; you are a part of my family. Now I get to share my faith with you and model Christ before you.
To my family, friends, and church family, Celebration Church, for your love, support and prayers, as you prayed me through to complete this book.
To my publisher, Candy Abbott, for your sensitivity to the voice of the
Lord and for publishing God's message to His people.
Are you managing your time the way that God designed it especially for you?
Everyone is given the same number of hours in the day, but the way the time is used varies from person to person. God has given each of us a custom- fit blueprint for how we should live our lives. Jeremiah 29:11 says that God knows the plans that He has for us: “. . . plans to prosper and not to harm [us], plans to give [us] a hope and a future.” God wants us to use our time to live a prosperous and good life that is full of hope. We can have this kind of life if we as children of God allow our heavenly Father to manage our time for us according to His perfect will. How can we know His will for our lives? We need to seek Him first and know His Word, which will govern our lives as we yield to His lordship.
Even though there are many secular books out there that tell us how to manage our time, God wants to tell us how to manage our time from His perspective because He has a special plan designed for our individual lives. Are we allowing God to provide our daily agenda to fulfill those plans that He has for us? With God’s plans, we will prosper and not be harmed, as well as experiencing boundless hope for our lives. God already has plans for our personal time management so that we can fulfill His purposes and attain our destiny in Christ Jesus.
Are you fulfilling your destiny that God has created for you before the foundations of the world? Have you ever stopped and thought, Where is the time going? I need more time! I need time to finish my project—the one that only I can do—or the ministry that God has called me to do, but I don’t have enough time to do it. What happened to the time?
One morning, I woke up feeling the urge to seize the time because I felt that it was slipping away from me. I was sad for a moment, but then I thought that I still had enough time in the day. I immediately pressed into a place of prayer with God and began to worship Him for who He is. Then, I spent a quiet time with God, needing Him to minister to me because I felt that I had missed out by not doing some of the things that He called me to do. Sensing God’s presence, I felt Him ministering to me with a reminder that I still had enough time that day to find out from Him what I needed to do. He also prompted me not to waste any more time thinking about the time that I had already wasted, but to use the time that I had left to accomplish what He created me for. As my foundation for Time Management God’s Way, God directed my attention to Matthew 6:33, which says, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you” (KJV).
God wanted me to let Him manage my time by giving it back to Him so that He could multiply it back to me. In turn, I could invest my time back into His kingdom. God promised me that if I entrusted my time to Him to do what He called me to do, then He would meet all my needs, and the Holy Spirit would guide me into all the truth necessary to live a successful life, full of boundless hope in Christ Jesus. Because my hope is in Christ Jesus, I chose to apply the biblical principle of sowing and reaping in Matthew 6:33 to help me manage my time.
If you are challenged by the concept of managing your time in an effective way, ask yourself if you’re allowing God to manage your time. Are you investing your time in His kingdom doing what He created you to do, or are you managing your time doing what you choose to do without consulting the giver of time—God Himself? I hope that after reading this book, you will re-evaluate your management of time to see if you are seeking God’s way of living or your own way of living. Proverbs 14:12 says that there is a way which seems right to a man or woman and it appears straight before him, but the end of it is the way of death. It can be the death of a dream, a vision, a successful and prosperous life, or, for some, death without the promise of eternal life with Christ Jesus.
In other words, how we spend our lives here on earth will determine how we spend our lives in eternity.
What Is
Time Management God’s Way?
Time is a precious commodity. Unfortunately, we cannot create more time or save it to spend on another day. Each person has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. The good news is that this is the day that the Lord has made, so rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24)!
It is good to know that I do not have to waste time thinking about the time I’ve already lost. I have not always realized how precious time is, but now that I am getting older, I am much more aware of my personal time management.
During one of my times of refreshing with the Lord, He revealed to me that I was not doing all that He created me to do. I was doing all the things that were important to me, but not to Him. The Lord pointed out to me that I was spiritually lazy in certain areas of my life, resulting in mismanagement of my time. There have been times that the Lord has placed on my heart certain things when He desired for me to do—only for me to put them off until later or never to do them at all.
I had to ask myself these questions: Was it because I did not know how to do these things? Was it a fear of failure or fear of success that was hindering me from doing these things? Perhaps it was my lack of faith that kept me
from doing what He called me to do. All of these issues at one time or another deterred me from moving from a passive state to one of action. I could sense the Lord saying to me, “It is time for you to do what I created you to do.”
God was making it clear to me that He gives us time as a gift—not to be used on ourselves—but to do His will. God was asking me what I did with my time. One particular question got my attention: was I managing time my way or God’s way?
My way of managing time did not even come close to measuring up to His way. According to Jeremiah 29:11, the Lord already has plans for our time that will lead us to live prosperous and successful lives. He has given each one of us a certain lifespan to achieve our destiny, and He is the only one who knows when our time is up. Ecclesiastes 3:2 says there is a time to live and a time to die. God is the only one who is in control of both and everything in between.
God has our best interests at heart by wanting us to succeed. When I acknowledge God’s sovereignty as the Creator of all things, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, why then should I not manage my time His way and yield my way to Him as the right way of doing things? Time Management God’s Way involves allowing God to manage our time according to the plans He has for our individual lives.
The Lord placed on my heart that what I needed to do the most is spend time with Him to understand His agenda and strategy for managing my time. I made a decision to spend quality time with the Lord in prayer and meditation, listening to discover how He desires to manage my time. I’ve learned that when we place our time in God’s hands, we are actually sowing our time back into God’s kingdom, so we will reap the harvest of time multiplied back to us. This principle of sowing and reaping is found in Galatians 6:7: “A man reaps what he sows.”
God reminded me that too often when this time is multiplied back to us, we misuse it for our own needs instead of investing it back into His kingdom. Many of us will use this increase in time to possess, accumulate, and acquire more things. The key to Time Management God’s Way is that when we receive this increase in time, we will not use it for ourselves because that’s selfish. (Self always seeks to be satisfied with everything except the things of God.) Instead, we should sow this increase of time back into God’s kingdom.
Time Management God’s Way alleviates stress in our lives by showing us how to yield our right-of-way to the Lord’s way of living. God desires for us to use His strategy of time management to carry out the plans He has for our lives so that we will develop a single-minded focus on kingdom living.
The Lord impressed upon my heart that this was an important subject to be addressed because the signs of our Lord’s imminent return are evident. In the meantime, we have vital work to do for His kingdom, so many of us should re-evaluate how we manage our time to see if we are investing it to advance His kingdom. These pages offer a challenge for us to take a closer look to see if we are managing our time His way or the world’s way. God’s way is higher than ours because He already knows the beginning and the end. His way will require us to put Him first in order of importance for everything that we do.
Each one of us will have to give an account of how we used our time while we were on the earth. Unfortunately, however, many of us are letting time slip by without doing what God created us to do. Remember that God is the only one who knows how much time we have on earth to accomplish all the plans that He has for our lives—not our plans, but His plans.
Time Management God’s Way is about seeking to make the kingdom of God and His righteousness a priority in our lives. The following chapters will give us insight into seeking God’s kingdom and His righteousness first, which will result in stress-free living.
Seeking Both the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness
God gave me instructions for writing this book to explain the foundational Scripture, Matthew 6:33, so people will understand the importance of seeking both the kingdom of God and His righteousness and its impact on the concept of Time Management God’s Way. This verse says, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (KJV).
When we seek the kingdom of God first, we will have what we need. God wants us to be content with His way of life, which allows us to develop a single-minded focus on His kingdom and His righteousness. As a result, we will reap a harvest of blessings added to our lives by God’s supernatural power, enabling us to have more time to do all that He is calling us to do.
I choose to manage my time God’s way and not the world’s way so that time will serve me instead of me serving time. God is always ready to bless us with more time to give us an abundant life. John 10:10 says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
Jesus came to earth to give us this full life now; we don’t have to wait until we get to heaven to receive it. For born-again believers, the kingdom of God truly means “heaven on earth.” We can experience abundant life now, but it will cost us time spent with God, who is the giver of time.
Let’s take a closer look at the word “seek” in Matthew 6:33. It comes from the Greek word zeteo, which means to worship, to endeavor, or to earnestly seek after. It is a matter of hungering or desiring; it is to seek with a desire to worship. This implies that we should earnestly seek to worship God with our entire selves. According to Romans 12:1, we should offer our bodies “as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is [our] spiritual act of worship.” God desires for us to earnestly seek His kingdom and His righteousness in order for us to live our lives according to His kingdom values. We also should seek both the kingdom of God and His righteousness with perseverance until we obtain them: casual seeking will just not do.
The Lord desires for us to make Him our priority so that we can receive the blessings of heavenly provision. To further understand how to seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness, let’s look at verse 33 in the context of the passage. Matthew 6:31-32 says, “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things” (KJV).
Epizeteo, another Greek word for “seek” used in verse 32, means to crave with an intense demand or to seek with much eagerness or with much stress. Jesus points out that the Gentiles eagerly seek after taking care of their material needs without understanding the Lord’s provisional care. The word “Gentile” comes from the Greek word ethnos, which means “heathen” or “unbeliever.” God does not want us to “seek” like the unbelievers who are filled with anxiety and stress because they choose not to surrender themselves to His care. The Gentiles make it their priority to seek after temporal things instead of the kingdom of God, which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Time Management God’s Way will empower us to enjoy stress-free lives when we live them according to God’s kingdom values rather than the world’s values. If we’re striving for either set of values, then we will have them. Those who focus their attention on worldly things will receive their reward while they’re living on the earth. As believers, however, we should be investing our time and energy in an eternal reward in heaven by putting God first in our lives.
The word “first” in the phrase, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” comes from the Greek word, protone, which means “first, chief of all, or holding the highest place in our affections.” In other words, the first place of our affections must revolve around the will of God. When we use the time given to us by God to do His will, we do not have to struggle to manage our time striving for material things. God promises that He will provide all of our necessities in this life; He will meet all our needs “according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).
We can manage our time better when we are not struggling to provide for all of our material things, which only brings anxiety to our minds. When we use this time to sow back into God’s kingdom, however, God will return that time back to us. Sometimes we get this time multiplied back to us, only for us to use this time for ourselves: we seek after pleasure because the world system baits us with its appeal to the flesh. God wants for us to receive more time so that we can sow it back into His kingdom and the things of God. If we choose to invest this time in ourselves, then we will become focused on self rather than on God, which, in turn, could lead us to seeking the wrong goals in life that would rob us of precious time.
When we spend our time seeking God first along with His kingdom and righteousness, then we will make it our top priority to walk in obedient submission to His sovereign reign. God will honor our time by multiplying it, protecting it, and using it for His kingdom work. Some of us are using our moments just to satisfy the cravings of the sinful nature, instead of investing them back into the kingdom of God. Once we start feeding the flesh what it desires, nothing can satisfy that lust; subsequently, we stop making “seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness” the first priority in our lives.
Matthew 6:33 is clear about what God’s priority is for us: to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Then, He will add those things that He knows that we need. The word “add” comes from the Greek word prostithemi, which implies giving more than what we have. That is what God does when we put our time into His hands to do the work of His kingdom. Because God created us to live in both the spiritual (supernatural) and the natural realms, He will give us not only those things that are eternal, but also those things that we need while we live on earth. God’s spiritual kingdom encompasses the hearts of born-again believers who live their lives according to Jesus’ righteous standards.
God demands that His kingdom and His righteousness be the top priority in our lives, ahead of all our personal needs and interests. We must always be careful not to allow other things to compete with the things that are important to Him. In this world, our natural instinct is to seek after happiness, satisfac- tion, and self-gratification.
King Solomon experienced wealth, power, honor, fame, and sensual pleasure—only to find out that it all was meaningless. In his first-hand testimony in Ecclesiastes, he wrote that, in the end, all he had acquired in his fleshly pursuits were emptiness and disillusionment. One important lesson King Solomon learned was that living a self-centered life of affluence, seeking worldly pleasures apart from God, was futile and did not result in true happiness.
True happiness occurs when we find our joy, peace, and fulfillment in God.
King Solomon concluded that we should reverence God and give His Word first place in our lives—for this is the whole duty of man. If we try to meet our own needs, we will be doing it in our own energy and strength, which will bring us unnecessary stress, difficulty, and spiritual warfare. As Christians, we must heed the words of Ephesians 6:11: “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”
When God gives us what we need, His supernatural grace is in full operation. On the other hand, when we do not obey Matthew 6:33, then we’ll worry about how we are going to manage to get all of our needs met.
Frequently, the cares of the world creep in to choke out the Word of God and His joy in our lives. Because the world is opposed to Jesus Christ and His people, it will always resist the principles of His kingdom. Today’s society pressures us to rather spend our time loving ourselves by working hard for more money to build our own successful dynasties.
In contrast, God’s way involves investing in a heavenly bank account that will last forever; no rust or corruption can touch our eternal deposit. Whenever we have a need, we must activate our faith, asking our heavenly Father for what we need, and He will give it to us. First John 5:14 assures us, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”
God desires for us to agree with His way of thinking, rather than conforming to that of the world system. Isaiah 55:8 says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.” Our way of thinking needs to be renewed by the Word of God, thereby empowering us through the Holy Spirit to no longer conform to the world’s philosophies.
Our covenant-keeping God desires for His children to receive the blessings of His covenant. As believers, we have a responsibility to do our part when we make a covenant with God. Unfortunately, we often fall short of doing our part by choosing to “do our own thing,” ultimately breaking our covenant with Him. The good news for us is that He will always be faithful to carry out His part. Numbers 23:19a says, “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should change his mind.” Since God’s very nature involves faithfulness, He will always provide for our daily needs.
We do not manage our time well because we spend too many hours trying to provide for ourselves or seeking after worldly things. This robs us of time to do the work of the kingdom of God. Matthew 6:25-30 says it best when Jesus tells us not to worry about providing for the necessities of life such as what we are going to wear or eat. “If God takes care of the birds and the lilies of the field,” Jesus said, “how much more will He take care of us who are more valuable to Him?” When we let God reign in our lives, then we can rest assured that He will take full responsibility for taking care of our needs. When I choose to believe that God will give me all that I need for my daily provision, I don’t worry; I simply activate my faith.
Sometimes we make things too complicated. If we take God at His Word and make it the final authority in our lives, then we will become radically transformed into the very image of Christ. By displaying the nature of Christ, we will be able to do great things according to His Word. When we exercise our faith, God will allow His grace to abound toward us by giving us all that we need as He wills (2 Corinthians 9:8). The primary things for us to do are putting God first and believing that God will be faithful to do what He said He would do.
Some may say, “I still need to do something to live and plan for the future.” The Lord is not telling us to refrain from planning for tomorrow. Planning for the future can be time well spent when we seek God’s counsel first; but worrying about tomorrow is time wasted. The negative by-products of worry and anxiety negate our faith and trust in God, disconnecting us from a stress- free and prosperous life, as well as causing damage to our physical health through stress.
As I meditated on this biblical principle of sowing and reaping, it made perfect sense to me. When I sow my time in God’s kingdom, I will reap a harvest of blessings from His kingdom. Since that’s the case, why would the believer not obey Matthew 6:33?
During my quiet time one day, I asked the Lord this question, and He revealed to me that it was an issue of trust. The bottom line is, can we trust God with our lives? While thinking about that question, I realized that sometimes I do not trust God with the affairs of my life. I should always trust Him because He loves me so much that He gave His Son Jesus to die for my sins. Looking back over my life, I recognized that God has never failed me, but I have often failed Him. I then asked God to forgive me for not trusting Him. The Lord is so gracious and longsuffering with us, but He still wants us to trust Him.
Trust can be defined as holding a firm belief in another’s honesty, ability, or integrity. It means you believe that person will do exactly what he says he will do—no matter what. Many believers may think that they trust God because they obey Him, but trusting God really comes down to whether we believe what He says is true or not. That settles it right there for me: I choose to believe God and His Word according to what the Scriptures say. God cannot lie; His word is trustworthy and will endure forever. Psalms 9:10 says, “Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.”
When we seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness as we are asked to do in Matthew 6:33, God will never forsake us; He will meet all our needs according to His will. Our responsibility is to trust Him. If we do not trust Him, then we will vainly use our time to take care of all those things that have already have been provided for us. Many of us will become frustrated and dissatisfied with our lives because we are living beneath our royal privileges by seeking after the servant’s portion instead of the royal portion.
Because we are members of the kingdom of God, a royal priesthood, and joint-heirs with Christ our King who owns everything, God wants to take care of us. The Lord reminded me that until we take the time to really get to know Him, we will not entrust Him with our time to do what He created us to do.
This insight on trusting God with my life has motivated me to learn more about His Word and spend more time getting to know God better. How much time do we spend getting to know someone that we think we can trust, only to find out that we really cannot trust them? People can fail us, but God cannot fail us.