Our Savior speaks to us about time in two main ways.
On the one hand, He tells us to take each day as it comes, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:33-34) And he teaches us to pray, “Give us day by day our daily bread.”
From this we learn to take each day as it comes, and to leave the future in God’s hands. “We live by faith, not by sight,” (2 Cor. 5:7) so far as the future is concerned.
But in another way He teaches us to live our lives with the end very much in mind. This is particularly true where persecution is concerned. It is truth that the ungodly and the ruthless and the evil prosper in this world, but their end is destruction. It is true that Christians often suffer for their beliefs, but our end is in glory.
Paul emphasizes this in his letter to the Christians at Thessalonica when he says, (2 Th. 1) “6God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.” This is the way that Christ lived and the way He calls upon His Christians to live – taking each day as a gift from God and leaving the justice up to Him.
In the catalog of the heroes of the faith, Hebrews mentions Moses, who (Hebrews 11:2)5 “… chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time.”
So how shall we use the time we have been given? How shall we spend our lives? In getting and spending and possessing? Or is it better to spend our lives in a way that brings honor or our Savior and eternal life through the gospel to those whom we touch in our lives?
We only have a little while.