Category Archives: Christ-like Priorities & Purposes

What does God’s Word say about how we should use our time?

Here are some Bible verses that can guide us in making the most of the time we are given. All of the reference used herein do not specifically refer to time, but the use of time would be implied.

Use your time responsibly as one accountable to the Lord not in bondage as a people-pleaser or mere lover of self.

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved – even though only as one escaping through the flames. (1 Cor. 3:10-15)

So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. (2 Cor. 5:9-10)

Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. (Gal. 1:10)

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. (Eph. 4:1)

Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. … (1 Pet. 1:17-25)

Parable of the Talents (Matt. 25:14-30)

Use your time in God-honoring ways, making your goal to please to Him in all you do.

Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. (Heb. 13:20-21)

And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh. (Rom. 13:11-14)

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. (1 Cor. 10:31)

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Col. 3:17)

As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. (1 Thess. 4:1)

Use your time to its best advantage, investing it wisely, knowing that you will never get it back.

Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. (Eph. 5:15-16)

Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. (Col. 4:5)

Parable of the Ten Virgins and their Oil Lamps (Matt. 25:1-13)

Use your time to do good, not living merely for your own comfort and convenience.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. (Gal. 6:9-10)

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph. 2:10)

Use your time productively, in ways that are beneficial.

Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest – and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man. (Prov. 6:6-11)

Sluggards do not plow in season; so at harvest time they look but find nothing. (Prov. 20:4)

“I have the right to do anything,” you say – but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything” – but not everything is constructive. (1 Cor. 10:23)

Use your time strategically and purposefully with everything in its proper time, not taking life for granted.

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Ps. 90:12)

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to … (Eccl. 3:1-11)

Show me, LORD, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure. Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom; in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth without knowing whose it will finally be. But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you. (Ps. 39:4-7)

Use your time in full dependence on the Sovereign Lord, making His priorities yours.

But I trust in you, LORD; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me. (Ps. 31:14-15)

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Ps. 139:16)

In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps. (Prov. 16:9)

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:13-15)

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matt. 6:33)

Use your time humbly as though each day was your last, knowing that God is in control.

Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring. (Prov. 27:1)

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. (James 4:14-17)

For More Guidance on Time Use:

• Help on Time Use for Bible Teachers
• Help on Time Use & Scheduling for Church Leaders
• Hindrance of Time Constraints in Fulfilling God’s Purposes
• List of Books to Help with Time Management (look under Time tab on that page)

We can identify what our top priorities should be based on what Jesus pointed to as the Greatest Commandments (Matt. 22:35-40). — Love God with your whole being and love people as you love yourself. — We’ve considered the kind of perspective we need to get to the point where we at least want to keep these priorities. Good intentions, however, don’t always translate into action.

A Prayer for Divine Power to Keep Loving God and Others as our Top Priorities

The Apostle Paul knew that self-determination and self-effort wouldn’t get us there which is why He prayed the following for the church at Ephesus.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Eph. 3:17-21)

Let’s break these verses down.

1) Those Paul prayed for to grasp His love were already “rooted and established in love.”

The groundwork has already been laid for us to truly love God and people. “We love because he first loved us” (1 Jn. 4:19). Remember that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16). “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:8)

2) This kind of love is so outside of our human existence that we need to “have power” to grasp it and be filled with it.

Loving as He loves does not come naturally to us humans. We tend to be quite self-centered, not wanting to give up what we perceive to be our rights, albeit give up our very lives for others. Our affections tend to be conditioned on any variety of criteria whereas Christ died because of love, not because we merited it. Consequently, we need divine power to grasp this kind of love and to be filled with it.

3) The “Lord’s holy people” are to be identified by love because God is love.

Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn. 13:35). We are in this together as His people which is why we should pray for one another similarly to what Paul prayed for the Ephesians.

4) We need divine power so we not only know His love cognitively but also experientially which is what it means “to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge.”

The word “grasp” in these verses means we take hold of it, not just know it. When we “know and rely on the love God has for us” (1 Jn. 4:16), we take what we learned about His love and believe it so much that it affects us.

5) The objective of having power to grasp His love is so we become more and more like Him, “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

God is love. The more we love as He loves, the more we will be a light to the world around us, showcasing Him so they too will come to know Him.

6) We might struggle to keep these priorities, but we should never give up hope of loving this way for He is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”

With God, nothing is impossible. As we constantly yield ourselves to the Spirit’s work in our lives, He builds in us the fruit of the Spirit, with love first on the list of traits (Gal. 5:22-23). “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” (2 Pet. 1:3) So, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Prov. 3:5-6)

7) When we do live according to His priorities to love Him and others, we can then only say “to him be glory” because it was by His power that we are able to love.

We shouldn’t pat ourselves on the back when we get it right because He laid the groundwork for us to love having rooted and established us in love. We can only love because He first loved us. And, without His power we would never be able to love as He loves because it is something supernatural.

Jesus pointed to love for God and then love for others as the greatest commandments (Matt. 22:36-40). Certainly, then, these commands should be our top priorities. If Jesus’ priorities are going to be ours, then we need to broaden our perspective so our hearts and minds head in that direction.

Perspective Foundational to Keeping the Right Priorities

Foundational to truly making Jesus’ priorities our own, we must get beyond the commands. We need a higher reason than “God said so”, though that should be enough.

Think about loving God with all of who we our — making Him our top priority in life.

God is the One of whom there is none greater. He is above all and all belongs to Him, hence, making Him worthy of our full devotion. As a personal God filled with love and compassion, He doesn’t merely look for devotion that comes from robotic obedience but rather desires a relationship with us. Jesus clearly stated, “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me” (Jn. 14:21).

In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome. (1 Jn. 5:3)

And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love. (2 Jn. 1:6)

Now think about loving others — the next priority.

God made people in His own image, hence making them important. Read Psalm 8 for the supremacy of mankind over all other creation. Read Psalm 139 and Matthew 6:26 for how God continues to value people. If we love God, we will love people (1 Jn. 4:21) for they matter to Him.

Perspective Critical to Our Ability to Keep These Priorities

We need to understand that loving God with all of who we are and loving others as ourselves is possible only because He first loved us. The ability for us to love starts with knowing the God who is love (1 Jn. 4:7-8) and who demonstrated that love by sending Jesus to die in our place (1 Jn. 4:9-11). The greatness of such love goes beyond our ability to measure (Eph. 3:17-19).

The ability for us to love more and more completely comes from knowing and relying on the love God has for us which provides the assurances we need to truly love. Fear tends to hold us back from loving God more fully and loving others as ourselves — fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of getting hurt, fear of disappointment, fear of betrayal, etc. (1 Jn. 4:12-19). When we know and rely on His love we push through those fears, doubts, and insecurities. “We love because he first loved us.” (1 Jn. 4:19)

With this kind of perspective we’re in a position to keep the right priorities but it takes more than a mental understanding of these two points. We need divine power to grasp that love (Eph. 3:17-21) — the topic of the next post.

When we talk about God laying something on our hearts, I think of Ezra 1:5. God moved, or stirred, the hearts of some of the exiled Jews to go back to Jerusalem to rebuild the house of the Lord. The ones who went had some sort of inward compulsion or prompting from God in their spirits to go. In a previous post we pulled out some principles about serving from that verse. An observation was made in a comment about how some Christians claim God laid something on their hearts but then “do an about face.” How do we know if it was God who laid it on our hearts or something else?

Overused Christian Jargon

I do agree that the use of the phrase “God laid it on my heart …” can be overused and even misused. It can get confusing when people insist on God’s moving and then don’t follow through or if they do but things go obviously wrong. Let’s remember that God is not a God of confusion (1 Cor. 14:33).

We, as Christians, need to be careful of the words we use. We also need to be careful with being so emphatic in how we express ourselves that it paints us into a corner of having to justify ourselves, and even worse, trying to justify God, like He is to blame.

Sometimes Misused Christian Jargon

To be sure, there is a very real sense in which God, through His Spirit, moves or stirs our hearts. Think of Jesus’ words in John 10:4-5 — “His sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”

Yet, sometimes when we Christians say “God has laid it on my heart to ….”, we would be better saying the following:

This is what I feel comfortable doing.

This is what I want to do.

This is what I think I should do.

This is what I feel like I am expected to do.

These words, “God laid it on my heart,” could more so reflect our personalities, our own will, feelings, desires, or thought processes. Sometimes they might even stem from the culture of the church or ministry of which we are a part.

We might have good intentions and be sincere but the influence of self and others can be ever so subtle that we think it is of God but isn’t.  We will be more likely to get it right when we realize the influence God’s Word must have that supersedes the pull of ourselves or others.

A Connection Between God Laying Something on Our Hearts & His Written Word:

1. God will never contradict His Word. If what you think God has laid on your heart doesn’t line up with God’s Word, He is not the source of what you want to do. It must be consistent with the commands and principles found in the Bible as well as the character and ways of God as described in His Word (2 Tim. 2:13).

2. If we are not regularly spending time with God in His Word, we better not trust our perceptions of what we think He has laid on our hearts. Jesus said His sheep know His voice so well that they can differentiate His voice from others (Jn. 10:4-5). How are we going to get to know His voice above all, including our own, if we do not spend time with Him in His Word?

3. Discernment comes through the “constant use” of God’s Word, chewing on the meat of what we read (Heb. 5:14). A casual and inconsistent approach to God’s Word that stays on the surface will not bring the spiritual maturity needed to differentiate between what He has laid on our hearts and what our own feelings, desires, or thought processes dictate.

When responding to a question about the greatest commandment, Jesus gave a two-fold response. First and greatest, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37-38). Second, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39). What greater purpose could we have in life than fulfilling the greatest commandments, especially since “all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matt. 22:40).

Understanding Our Greatest Purpose in Life as Jesus Explained in Matthew 22:36-40

If we break down the words of Matthew 22:37-40, we come to understand that these commandments should consume our hearts and minds as well as what we do with our time. All we do should be measured against the fulfillment of these commandments. Surely we have no greater purpose in life than to love the Lord and love others.

• “Jesus replied”

Our greatest purpose in life isn’t a mere human sentiment but comes with divine authority.

• “Love (agape) the Lord your God . . . Love (agape) your neighbor . . .” (agape = divine love … the highest form of love)

Our greatest purpose in life, love for God and love for people, isn’t natural but rather something supernatural.

• “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

Our greatest purpose in life isn’t a sporadic or half-hearted endeavor but rather all-consuming, putting all of who we are completely into loving Him.

• “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Our greatest purpose in life isn’t unidirectional but rather multi-faceted in first and foremost loving God but also then ourselves and others.

• “This is the first … commandment. And the second is like it …”

Our greatest purpose in life isn’t a low priority but rather the top, chief priority in terms of time, place, and rank.

• “This is the … greatest commandment …”

Our greatest purpose in life isn’t insignificant but rather measures beyond any other command … the “mega” commandment.

• “commandment”

Our greatest purpose in life isn’t an option but rather a matter of obedience.

• “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Our greatest purpose in life isn’t a sub-point but is at the top as the main point with everything else coming under it.

All of these truths take the command to love God and love people to a higher level than anything else in life. Nothing can be more important. Nothing should ever take its place. Nothing can be a greater purpose in life than to love the Lord and love others.

Consequently, helping the Body fulfill these priorities should be an active pursuit of church leaders. The Steering the Church Toward God’s Purposes Leadership Guide includes the content in this post and also poses a question under each of the above points to help leaders reflect on how their practices align with the Greatest Commandments.