Time is not Linear
And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14).
We are temporal beings, we have never known a world without limited, sequential measurements of time. First we get up, then we get dressed, then we get our shoes on … One moment leads to another, we cannot travel backward and forward between these moments. And yet, in the real world time is not simply linear - one moment is not equal to any other. The few seconds it takes to tie your shoes every day is not equal in value it took to kiss your spouse for the first time. The moments we spend fighting with prayer for our lost friends is more valuable than the moments we spend crunching problems at work. Take a few moments and make sure your time is being spent in the most valuable ways.
“Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” 2 Timothy 4:8
The day we receive our crown of righteousness will be of greater value than all the days we had before. And yet, we can not have that day unless we put together all the days of our lives before it in the order of serving God first. We should not view life as a series of good and bad things to get through to get to that day, but a series of challenges. Life is a series of tests to see if we are living for the most important day. The hard days are challenges not to give up, and the good days are challenges to not get lazy. We have to number our days in a way that gives greater value to the day God has ahead for us.
To fully live a new vision, you have to let the old vision die.
We all have visions for our lives - what we want to be doing, what we want our relationships to look like. While it is important to have a vision for our lives, it is more important to have the right vision for our lives. To be fully alive to God's vision for your life, you have to surrender your own vision for your life. “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” (Phillipians 3:7). For us to experience great gain in our lives, we have to willing to give up everything else that distracts us from the sake of Christ.