#redeemingthetime

This training is on the crystallization of whole type of the church, the corporate testimony and expression of what God so desires on earth. Seeing is one thing, experience of what we have seen is another. As we pray to the Lord to show us the revelation, we must also pray that the Lord grant us the experience. I feel not only we don’t pray enough, also we don’t ask enough. One aspect of prayer is for fellowship to contact the Lord, but what I’m saying is not to ask for stuff, like good grades or a clear mind. What I am talking about is asking for something spiritual, according to His will. We should ask more, even freely ask. We don’t receive because we don’t ask. Many of us do not exercise this divine right, rather we ask only for things for our personal benefit. I am talking about asking something of Lord according to his divine heart. Solomon asked for wisdom and that request was more than answered by God. Today God is waiting to answer prayer, but the prayer must be the kind that touches His heart, that is His will. In my experience, I cannot say everything I ask of Lord is answered, even many things are not answered. These are instances where I asked for the wrong thing or even in impure way. But everything I asked from Lord that is on mark according to the Lord’s will, every one has been answered, even more than what I asked or could think. I like to challenge you to ask the Lord for what you don’t have. If you want to ask for blessing, ask for spiritual blessing from the heavenlies. Ask to see spiritual revelation, to receive a spirit of wisdom and revelation, and that kind of prayer is guaranteed to be answered. Fill your conversations with the Lord with this kind of asking. To ask like this, first you need to have His word in you. John 15:7 says, “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.” Then this no longer what you will but your will aligned with God. Basically this is only asking for the Lord’s will. Basically this kind of asking is given. Lord is waiting to answer these kinds of prayers. Feel free to ask. Ask the Lord abundantly for something according to His interest in your life. Ask the Lord for seeing and much experience. You say, “I’m just college kid.” Well maybe so, but it’s not a matter of age but a matter of heart. If your heart is in right place, go ahead and ask. Some prayers the Lord will not answer, because they cannot be answered in the short term, maybe in the next decade. Ask and you will see the Lord’s answers as your life unfolds, as you grow and go on. But you ask. Today I have feeling to touch on Psalm 84. This is a lovely psalm. “How lovely are your tabernacles.” It was touched in message 4 that this is the expression of sons of Koran longing, even fainting, because they are longing so much for God’s house. These tabernacles refer to God’s house. In our experience today in the New Testament, it can be considered to be the churches where you. Are. These people, their hearts are filled with longing, even for the church life in this way. Because it is in these tabernacles and courts where they find the living God, where they find Jehovah. Psalm 27:4, says “One thing I have asked from Jehovah; that do I seek: to dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of Jehovah, and to inquire in His temple.” Pray read this verse, make it yours. This one thing I ask: to dwell in the church, in the church life, every day of my life for the rest of my life, because it is here that I can behold the beauty of Jehovah and inquire in His temple, meaning this is life where I can enjoy the Lord’s presence, His face, a life of beholding and reflecting the glory of the Lord and being transformed into His image. This is God’s will and desire. This is the life of a priest, constant beholding and reflecting the glory of the Lord in His presence; this can only happen in the tabernacle. In Psalm 84:10 it says, “For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand; I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. This is wonderful verse. A day in the church life is better than 1000 days. This is about 3 years. He is saying one day in the tabernacle is better than 1000 days or 3 years not in the tabernacle. One day in the church life is better than 3 years not in the church life. So one day in church life = 3 years or more in church life as far as duration, as far as value of time. By next year, I will have been in church life for about 50 years. 50 years is close to 30000 days. Thank God I will have spent 30000 days in the church, in the courts of Jehovah. According to this formula, that each day is better than 3 years, 30000 days x 3 years/day = 90000 years. If the Lord keeps me for these next few years to 50 years, I will have lived a life of value for 90000 years. In the eyes of world, many, including my family, say, “Since you got into this, you are wasting your time. You should have become accomplished, etc.” Little do they know I have earned 90000 years of life in eyes of God. Part of verse 10 says, “I would rather stand at threshold at house of my God.” In some translations, it says, “I would rather be doorkeeper, than dwell in the tents of wicked.” The psalmist is making an analogy; he would rather even be door keeper for the tabernacle than to be hanging out with wicked, meaning that anything outside of church is wicked place. Several psalms later, Psalm 90 by Moses, is talking about the brevity of human life, and so forth. He says, “The days of our years are seventy years, or, if because of strength, eighty years.” Right now in the USA, the age expectancy is 78.3 years. All those, even 80 years, of labour and sorrow will be gone and will fly away. Life is brief, like the falling of a leaf. Verse 12 tells us then to number our days. Moses, who lived well beyond 80 years, talks about how to redeem time. Ephesians 5:16 says, “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” I am very burdened that on one hand you have a lot of years in front of you, the best years. I remember when I was your age, I wished the clock would go faster. I told myself, “I have too much time on my hands, I wish it would go quicker.” But I have come to appreciate words of Paul about the redemption of time. Redeem the time because the days are evil. Why are the days evil? Why are they evil? Why is every day an evil day? Because every day there are things that fill that day which are evil and make that day evil, including evil people, things, habits, society, and so on. Evil means something that is pernicious, meaning that a form of evil that comes or that affects you in an imperceptible way. If you can identify evil, you will always run but when it is imperceptible and you don’t know it is evil, that is pernicious. Satan is the evil and pernicious one. He works in a way that is imperceptible. When you don’t know it is going on but it is going on, that is evil. We live in evil days, because there are so many things in our lives that are evil in this sense. The point here in Paul’s writing, is that the reason the days are evil is they consume and eat up your time. They are not just evil in the sense that they are bad or tempt you to sin, but the context is that the days are evil, because they eat and consume up your time. They take away, reduce, decrease, and eat up the time you have, according to the footnote. They cause you to use time ineffectively. In other words, they render your time useless. Time is somethings we all have because we are born. That is all we have. We are just allotted that much time. When that time comes, it is over. Around 80 years is the amount of time that has been given to us, but we are talking about its value decreasing. It can be reduced, but it can be multiplied. The choice is ours. We are all allotted this much time, but for some people that time is day by day reduced. They live 80 years almost like only one year is worthwhile in material. 79 years are useless; that is evil. This is more evil than anything else. When you wallow in the world, you are just wasting your time; you are actually reducing your time. When you lose money, you can always make it back, but when you lose time, once it is gone, it is gone forever. Today, I wish I could move the clock back. I hate to hear the ticking of the clock, because every second gone is one less to live and they accumulate quickly. I’m not saying I am racing against time, but I have much less to redeem than you do and I live more desperately than you because I have less to redeem. What does it mean to redeem the time? It does not mean to add more time; you have only finite time. To redeem means to buy back, to regain what can be the Lord’s. Joel 2:25a says, “And I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.” Right now I am talking about asking the Lord that I will never have to pray that prayer. The Lord would restore these years to some degree, but how much better it would be for us to not have to pray this prayer and not have to ask for time to be restored. How much better it would be for us to say that we chased, redeemed, and regained the time. “Redeem the time” here in the footnote (?), means seizing every opportunity, every hour, day, and minute. Time is time; it ticks for everybody. For some it is redeemed time, but for others it is lost time. Every day this is facing us from the moment we get up to the moment we go to bed, which is around 16 hours. What will we do with those 16 hours? We all have to live a life to redeem those hours. We cannot increase or decrease time, as far as the duration itself. It is standard for everybody. But the use or value of time varies. If we redeem those hours, this time will be effective, valuable, multiplied, and increased. But if don’t redeem them and let them go to do other things, that time is reduced, lost, and made useless. It’s like we never had it. It’s the same time, but the value changes. What are we to do? With Paul in the New Testament, whenever time is mentioned, wisdom is mentioned. This teaches us how to number our days. Ephesians 5:15 says, “Look therefore carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise.” Wise men redeem the time; having a wise heart means that we number the days, which has same meaning as redeeming time. You must treat each day, each year as so valuable that you will capture every one of those opportunities, and will not let them go to useless things. That is a wise heart. Ephesians 5:17 says, “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” Remember the 10 virgins in Matthew 25. The difference between the five wise and five foolish virgins is the oil. Five had oil and the five others, which also were saved ones, had no oil. What is the difference? The difference is when they bought the oil, meaning the time. The wise ones spend their lives today buying. When you buy oil, you multiply and increase the value of your time. There are those doing many other things; they still have to buy oil one day, but now they are rendering their time useless. They live in evil days. I like to come to some practical applications concerning how to redeem the time. One is the iPhone. I have one. The more technology is improving, the more this little black thing in my hand is the world. Everything related to the world is right here on my phone. It is just a few taps and swipes away. I can access incredible amounts of the world that not many years ago I could not access for my whole life. Every form of evil is here. You don’t need to go anywhere; you can be in your room and with the world. You can immerse yourself. Next thing is the oculus; you are able to immerse yourself to be fully in it and participate in that event. We wouldn’t know what to do without this convenience today. It is a two-edged sword; it can help or kill. And it has killed many, including us. This is the evil day, because it consumes your time. This is almost the single most used device today by the evil one to consume your and my time. It renders our time evil; it reduces and destroys it. The time we are given by Lord of 70-80 years for His purpose are now sliced away for nothing. I would say that all of us are addicted to our phones. The time people spend on this, like the loading of pictures. How much time do you spend on that? Not to mention the real rotten things this can bring. Today there are so many killings going on, and the next day it’s on the news all over social media. The devil has spanned a web like he has never done before in history of the human race. Dear saints, who are we and what are we doing here? Don’t be foolish like the worldly people but understand what the will of the Lord is. We must have a wise heart that would seize every moment and opportunity, but this also depends on our knowledge and understanding of His will. What is God’s will? This whole training is showing us God’s will. God’s will is that we would be filled with Him, saturated with Him, become one with Him, become golden, and become God. All these wonderful utterances are the will of God for each one of us. To do that I know only one way that we can become golden. This is to spend time with the golden One. We can see why our phone is evil; it’s not just because it shows us bad things, like pornography, but even if they are good, they are taking away the time we have to spend in the presence of the Lord. Hymn 643 tells us to take time. We cannot be quick to spend time with the Lord. If there is one thing that takes time, that is spending time with the Lord. Every minute spent with the Lord is a minute redeemed for eternity. I suggest that you ask the Lord to help you to build a habit to redeem the time and spend more time with the Lord personally and every day, rather than spending time one phone. Let’s be different, let’s not follow course of this age. Yes, we have, use, and even have the Bible and hymnal on this. But please do not reduce God to a window, one of 10 things compartmentazed by you in a box and that is your God. God deserves our whole attention and concentration. The reason we do not have so much saturation with the Lord is because our time with Him is so quick. We think, “I need to do other things.” Do you know the Lord is a jealous God over our time with Him? Moses didn’t go into the Lord’s presence for 30 seconds and come out shining. But he spent 40 days and nights of gazing, receiving the radiation of the God of glory. He got under his skin and in his being. Spend time with the Lord, take time to behold Him. This is the way you redeem time. This is how time becomes valuable, even this time is multiplied and is made more valuable. Psalm 84:10 says, “For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand.” The other way to redeem the time is to spend your days in the courts, that is in church meetings, with the saints, in the work and service with the Lord. I thank the Lord forever and ever that I was kept in the church life every day. I can die today but still boast in 90000 years of valuable time. Young people, never leave the church, never even entertain that thought. A number of saints who dropped out came back and always mourn the loss of these years because they are years that don’t count in the eyes of God. Spend your days in the church. Be a swallow and a sparrow. Never leave the church, love the church. If you would practice this, you will have many years, thousands, tens of of thousands that count in eyes of God and count in doing His will. May the Lord give us such a heart. Take time to pray, be with the Lord, and behold and reflect. We don’t have a moment to reflect and even to think, because we are busy going to the next window or page. At end of day we will then have nothing but emptiness. Life will pass by like a sigh.

Look therefore carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.