What is your most valuable asset? Don’t answer right away…if you will take the time, think about it for a minute.
Value is generally ascribed to scarcity. If it’s in short supply it becomes more valuable. Considering the fact that 100% of us end up on the other side of the dirt, 6 feet under, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to deduct time is valuable. Logically, it becomes more valuable the less of it we have. We know our days are numbered but we naively think they measure longer than today. Naive or foolish, we should not make assumptions on the time we have.
A dominant theme in the Bible revolves around time. GOD created the world and He will destroy it…IN Him there is no shifting shadow, no passing of time…He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. When sin entered the world, things began to grow old and die. There is only one man on record who rose from the dead to live and never die again; Jesus Christ. You and I were born into this world and we will leave it. Therefore our most fleeting, irreplaceable, valuable asset while we are here is time.
What do you do with the most valuable asset you have? For starters, you cherish it. You don’t take it for granted and you use it accordingly. How do YOU use your time? How do YOU spend it? How do YOU make the most of it? Maybe we should even back up…do you know how valuable it is?
1st Peter 4: 7-8 says… “The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” Peter should know about time. One minute he’s declaring faith and loyalty, then a few hours later he denies even knowing Jesus. And that love stuff, if it covers denial and betrayal it can cover much more.
It’s a good reminder. The end of all things IS near. Again, not a rocket scientist needed here. Even a kid knows when their grandparents aren’t around any more. People move away with jobs. Relationships end. Divorce. The kids grow up and move away. The money dries up. The end of ALL things is near. No kidding.
So what do you do with that most valuable of assets. Christ taught “Be on guard! Be alert!” “WATCH!” So are you watching? Are you alert to whats going on around you or have you been lulled to sleep? Are you just cruising through time treating it like it’s a replenishable asset, or like it’s the most valuable one you have. Are you loving like there’s no tomorrow…there might not be.
Most assets we can quantify, but not time. Since we know it’s valuable and we don’t know how much we have it’s good to listen to those who hung out with the only guy to have an inexhaustible supply of it. Jesus didn’t know when time ran out, He said only the Father knew. But He imparted a little wisdom through His servant Paul in this second letter to Timothy 3: 1-5.
“But mark this. There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God- having a form of Godliness but denying it’s power.”
When you and I make a list, we tend to put the most glaring, the most obvious things at the top of the list. The first words and the last are usually where we try to make our point. I don’t know if Paul worked in the same fashion, but it is interesting to note. Lovers of themselves, lovers of money. Sound like anybody in your world. Does this sound like our leaders? Are these people we follow or people we should avoid. Does this sound like us on any given day?
Oh yeah, I left out Paul’s last words in the 5th verse. He said, “Have nothing to do with them.” He didn’t say talk against them or trash them to your friends and in social media. His advice was to use your time wisely. His advice was don’t waste your time.
So the question on the floor is regarding your most valuable asset. How did you spend it today? What did you do with it today? How did you use it today? Did you spend it loving on people or hating on them? Did you sow seeds of love or seeds of animosity? Did you waste it with acts and words that spread dissension or ones that brought people together?
Be intentional with things of value. Time is valuable and you don’t know how much of it you have. Use it wisely.