Two and a half months have already passed us by, you now have seven and a half months to train for the 2024 Summer Olympics. You are all going to watch some part: track and field, basketball, rowing, swimming. Right now, the athletes who plan to compete in those games are on a training schedule which will land them in the best shape of their lives so they can compete for a gold medal.

Challenge Yourself: What two or three events do you want to be in peak shape for? Spiritual, relational, financial, physical shape?

Accountability: Write it down and share it with someone. Share it with me if you like and I will check in and see your progress.

Core Training: Think of the book Run to Win as our training guide for the year. Seventeen core exercises to keep yourself, your soul, in shape so you might run to win.

Redeem your time is the exhortation from the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:15-17.

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

“Redeeming your time” might be a better translation than “making the best use”. It’s a marketing term. As a businessman, you look for strategic opportunities to buy. You see something valuable being wasted so you purchase it, you redeem it, because you have a strategy to use it for a better purpose.

The American Pickers look around and see something valuable being wasted. They have a strategic plan to redeem and repurpose for a better use. Persistence, passion and patience paid off.

Before we look at Paul’s exhortation, let’s back up and see the bigger picture:

1. God has a strategy – Genesis 1. In the beginning, the earth was without form and void. God’s strategy was to form and fill. In the first three days, God forms and in the second three days, God fills. God is both architect and artist. God establishes time and seasons. God operates strategically in time. Galatians 4:4 says “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son.” God operates strategically with time. God acts at just the right moment, God is redeeming his time wisely.

2. God has a strategy for you – Genesis 1:22-28

And God blessed them, saying “be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day. And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds – livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

We are made in God’s image and we are designed, not to be God, but to image God. We form and we fill. We subdue and have dominion. We turn chaos into order. We establish structure and boundaries and we fill the earth. We bring our unique artistic expressions to the places we are forming.

God has designed us for specific activities in time. Ephesians 2:10 – “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Consider this, YOU are the outcome of something God has envisioned. God has work for you to do, he has a strategic vision for what you will do in your time. He designed you like Himself, to operate strategically with time. So redeem your time, God has work for you to do. If you are wasting it, if you are giving your time to things of little value, buy it back! Deploy your time strategically!!

Now we’ll return to Ephesians 5.

Purchasing the time (Ephesians 5:16): 

In the Greek language, there are two different words for time – chronos and kairos. Chronos is where we get the word chronological, meaning a moment in time. Kairos is when conditions are right to accomplish a crucial task, a decisive or opportune moment. So Paul is saying, like a shrewd businessman, you have to redeem your time and use your time for the best purposes so when a kairos moment comes, you are ready!

How do you train for a kairos moment? How can you be ready so when a “good work, prepared by God beforehand” comes your way, you can walk in that way? Look carefully how you walk. Some translations say, “walk circumspectly.” Look all around, look behind, look ahead, look with care, look purposefully. If you want to walk in God’s ways, it takes looking around your life with care, with purpose. We don’t drift, we don’t coast, we are not passive, we don’t just react. We want to use our time wisely so we Pray, Plan, Pursue and are Patient. We live our of a purposeful strategy, not drifting to the right or the left.

In Nehemiah 2, Nehemiah prayed and planned so when the king asked, “What are you requesting?”, Nehemiah was ready. He had redeemed his time. He thought strategically ahead!

How many of us have regrets or scars from not looking around carefully, for walking into trouble or harm because we just didn’t want to take the time to look carefully. Look around at how you are spending your time! Take just one more look.

Walk not as unwise, but as wise…don’t be foolish (Ephesians 5:15, 17):

 There are two kinds of wisdom, spiritual and common. Walk with both. Notice what Paul says about spiritual wisdom in Ephesians 1:16-19.

I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to his great might.

Paul prays that the Lord would give them a spirit of wisdom, so that the eyes of your heart are enlightened knowing the hope you have in Jesus, the riches you have in Jesus and the power you have in Jesus. Spiritual wisdom is knowing hope, wealth, and power all come from Jesus. This reshapes the way you walk!

Common wisdom is living with the grain of how the universe is set up, anyone can have this wisdom. Proverbs is a great place to learn how to live your life with the grain of the universe. Proverbs 14 – The fool believes everything, but the wise gives though to his steps. Proverbs 12 – The way of a fool seems right to them, but the wise listens to advice. Proverbs 29 – A fool vents all his feelings, but a wise man holds them back. This is common wisdom.

Look carefully then/therefore (Ephesians 5:15): 

Paul gives us some warnings. Don’t be deceived by empty words. Don’t become partners with the disobedient and darkness. Do try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Wake up O sleeper, we have been raised from the dead, so open up your eyes and let us walk carefully, let us walk with wisdom and strategically use our time for good!

Questions: 

1. How does knowing you are the outcome of something God envisioned and that God has strategically planned (in advance) good works for you to accomplish, change or challenge your thinking?
2. Do you walk carefully? Are you walking/living out a strategy or are you drifting/passive?
3. Consider the spiritual wisdom of Ephesians 1 and the common wisdom available in Proverbs. How would having both types of wisdom flowing through your mind help you better “redeem your time”?
4. In 2024, what deception, darkness or disobedience might you need to walk away from? In what area of your life do you need discernment?

Iron Leadership Materials:

• The Daily Office- 12-1-23