AVOIDABLE Time-Consumers, and How to Get Rid of Them

I've already addressed two of the biggest UN-Avoidable time-consumers, but what about the things that ARE avoidable? The things that we CAN take out of our schedule? Here's some practical steps to avoiding the avoidable. Psalm 16:11 says "In your presence is fullness of joy, at your right hand pleasures forevermore." We don't need those things; we need God. So let's do some life-cleaning, shall we?

Media

a. (Social) Internet

The internet has become one of the largest problems for Christians recently, who become quickly reeled in to be glued to the screen. While the internet is not bad-it can be useful and even productive, overuse, unproductiveness or even evil sites have been crawling onto the desktops of Christians. The biggest problem lies, I think, in the social networking, which consumes thousands of hours from Christians that could be used for God. But there are ways to monitor (or get rid of it) fully.

1. Set up hours/limits for your online use.

It really helps me if I just decide that I'm not going to use Facebook every day. All it is is telling your temptation to get online "I'm sorry, but let's just wait until tomorrow. We don't need to do it today." Satan will tell you that you do need to do it now, and sometimes there is a real reason that you need to check your social pages. But oftentimes it is just a way to burn time. The price is too high to waste on this! We pay attention to burning as little fuel as possible because of its five dollar price: your time and spiritual life are priceless!

2. Use it for edifying purposes.

If you find yourself just scrolling randomly around the internet, that's when it's time to get off. Rather than looking down your "news feed", following random friend's pages, or just posting a status about your recent escapade of eating a bagel (which really interests everyone else, I'm sure), why not post a Bible verse? Send a note to a friend who's having a hard time? Or better yet, blog?

3. If it is in your power, get rid of it.

If the only people on your social internet are either mostly strangers or people who you already see three times a week, it might be time to get rid of your Facebook. Sometimes that may not be possible; but if it is, it may be time to reconsider your priorities.

b. Television

Recent movies, like Fireproof, Courageous, and Amazing Grace have brought great Christian films to many. But the television is one of the worst for consuming time that could be used well. The average American watches 4 hours of TV every day-which will amount to 9 years of television by the time they are 65. Even if you don't watch 4 hours of TV every day (or week, even), it may be time to think about why you watch it.

1. Spend Your Time Well

As I said before, setting a time limit for yourself is a great way to keep track. You can set yourself to maybe a limit of time or on how many movies you watch. A TV fast is also a great way to improve your walk with God-every time you want to watch TV, you go spend time with God instead. I'd recommend trying it!

2. Watch God-Glorifying Movies

Not every movie that is good necessarily has a "Christian" message-some very good movies aren't "Christian." But many Christians have become hardened to swearing, bad jokes, and other things in movies. We justify it by saying "Well, that movie is great! The one swear word can't bother God, can it?" Well in truth, the smallest sin and compromise brothers God, and if we take one step down we'll just want to take one lower.

3. If You Can, Remove the Distraction

It may not be possible to throw out your family's TV, but if you can it could cause a wave of difference in your spiritual walk. If you get rid of your TV and find a good movie, you can always watch it with your computer or watch it with a friend.

UnChrisitian Music, Books

The UnChristian music and book genre is a touchy place, one of those gray areas in Christianity. But I'm not on a position on whether secular things are actually wrong (assuming that they don't contradict any Biblical precepts). I think that we need to stop asking, How far can I go before it's not in God's boundary lines?-but we should be asking How far can I go to honor God in this area of my life? This is what the Bible says we should do-"Do ALL for the glory of God." is what the apostle Paul says. So here are some tips in the area of secular music and books.

1. Let Yourself Be Open

The first step is always to be willing to give it up. This willingness may not come over night, but with a firm prayer that He would help you to let it go and a real try, He will bring you through.

2. Obey His Commands

This is harder, even if you have allowed yourself to be open. There will be excuses from your flesh. Maybe you don't listen to the non-Christian radio station, but you have a couple of Taylor Swift songs on your iPod. "That can't be bad, right? Or really, Eragon? That book is totally fine! The Hunger Games? Really? God, you're getting into the extreme." Well...news flash, Christianity is the extreme. And if you're going to go under its banner, you'd better be prepared to live like it.

I highly recommend taking a break (or removing) distractions from your schedule. And believe me, I am anything but a finished piece in this part of life. But with work-and prayer-all things are possible.

The Top Unavoidable Time Consumers-and What to Do About Them (Part 2)

If you've ever gardened, you know how beautiful and enjoyable it can be to watch your flowers and plants grow-especially if you can taste the outcome! But you also probably know how much work it is. Flower gardens are a lot like our lives. One of the biggest problems are the weeds, which choke out the beautiful blossoms and food and make the garden downright ugly. But some flowers have the tendency to become overgrown and take over the entire garden-and even the yard! We have to learn to keep the things we need in our lives under control so that God can have full, unhindered control of our lives.

Sleep

I can imagine the teenagers who read this groaning and rolling their eyes. Sleep. We can't go without sleep! And that's true. We need sleep. And even if you're not sleeping in until noon, sleep can have unhealthy control over your life.

Night Owls

This is the wider, more popular category, made up of people who stay up late to do school (check out my last post), work, or just watch movies or spend time on Facebook. But what does this lead to? A rushed 10 minutes of Bible reading and 2 minutes of prayer while you scramble around at 9 to finish your school. But I've found it necessary to get up early to serve my King, and that has to be an option to you as well. You may not have to get up at 5, seven may work just fine. But whatever you choose, you have to choose a time to get to it.

1. Make a Determined Effort to Get to Bed Earlier

Whether it means finishing school at 4 rather than 9, deliberately turning off the computer at 8, or any other change to keep yourself from staying up late, the best thing to do is make a focused effort and decide to keep it. The first night (or several nights) it will probably be hard to fall asleep early, but keep at it and eventually your body will adjust to the earlier schedule. Not only will your spiritual life be furthered, but you will probably feel more awake during the day.

2. Make a Determined Effort to Wake Up Earlier

The first step is to set your alarm for the time you have decided to get up in the morning, and measure when you get to sleep depending on what time that is. If you're not used to getting up earlier, the first week will be torture. But as you adjust, it will become easier and easier. I've found it helps me to put my alarm on the other side of the room so I'm forced to get up and walk across the room to turn it off-which wakes me up. I've also put it under things before, so I don't half sleepwalk if I'm really tired. Remember, you won't be able to get up early if you don't get to sleep early too.

Early Birds

Believe it or not, early birds (I am one of them) can have problems with sleep too-even we have trouble getting up early some times! We too often fall into a schedule as well where our school and our sleep are almost back to back. My family has suggested to me multiple times that I begin school at 5:30 after my 5:00 alarm goes off, rather than 9:00, but the first two hours of my day are sacred to me, reserved only for the precious time with just myself and my King. If you've already mastered getting your sleep habits under control, then you may have other things to worry about ;)

1. Reserve Your Early Morning Hours for Him

Rather than doing school at 6:30, why not start at 8:00, and save that hour and a half for Him? If that isn't possible, then maybe it's time to consider pushing your wake up time back, removing an outside activity or school subject, or cutting down on Facebook or other similar distractions. Nothing is more important than God.

2. Reserve Your Evening for Him

My evening devotions aren't nearly as long as my morning devotions, but some people prefer to do then at night. With early morning risers, the need to get to sleep early presses-and sometimes God is forgotten in the rush to get to bed on time. Set something down to do before you get to sleep-a journal, one Bible reading plan or part of it, etc, that you do in the evening rather than the morning. Even if it only takes you two minutes, it's always better to end the day with God than without Him.

I'm not someone who can tell you how to get better sleep or how to fall asleep easier. My job is just to give what advice I've found helpful in my own life. I pray God blesses you in your efforts. :)

The Top Unavoidable Time Consumers-and What to Do About Them (Part 1)

"Look, I want to spend time with God, I really do, but I just don't have time!" This seems to be the cry of many Christians. The bookstores are filled with "Devotions in 3 minutes!" types, for in a hurry and on-the-go Christians. But as A.W. Tozer said, "It is well that we accept the hard truth now: the man who would know God must give time to Him." But we are stuck with a chapter of the Bible crammed into the corners and prayer is something that we wish we had time for. Even if we are setting aside a focused time, we still find ourselves rushing throughout the day. Some of this is our own laziness and unnecessary activities (we'll get to that later) but what about the things that we can't cut out of out schedule? Those are what we have to keep the tightest control over if our relationship with God is to flourish.

[Home]School

In the old times, school was not nearly as rigorous as it is today, and a higher education (high school, not college) was anything but mandatory-but that is not the view of today. It's so easy to say that the Bible was written in times when people didn't have to do school and that its principals don't work here. But God knows our time and our situation-and the Bible's ethics do work. It's just that ours don't. School is not something you can skip out on anymore, but we have to find a way to work around it so we can give our lives to God. Here are some practical ways to glorify God in this area of your life:

1. Clear Out Your Schedule

Now, as a homeschooler, life rarely caters to my schedule exactly. But school needs to actually have a certain time for it. Forty-five minutes of Wii Fit or a long jog may not be wrong in your schedule, but doing so at one in the afternoon and pushing your school back until six isn't a solution either. School needs to be able to work without distraction and with planning. When your day is planned out, it runs much more efficiently.

2. Set Boundaries

School doesn't have to go from nine to three, but it needs to have a set time. Staying up until midnight does not help your case. When your boundaries are not set, school can push essentials like family time and especially God out of the way in your pursuit. Even though school is important, it's not the most important thing in life. And with a clean schedule, it's as simple as stopping chemistry at three rather than ten.

3. Prioritize

If you find that your school is not fitting inside your boundaries, then you need to prioritize what school you are doing. A required math course, the Latin class your mom says you have to take, and science may all be stuck in your life. But do you really need that extra history class? Do you actually need to get two math books done this year? Do you really need to get ahead? It's not just the dropping of subjects though, but overdoing them as well. Yes, studying for the SAT is a worthy pursuit, but adding three hours to your daily schedule-even to your weekly schedule may not be the right thing to do. Do you have the lesson? Then do you need to do every optional problem? As homeschoolers (overachievers) the temptation is huge. Even if it means doing school during the summer, the eternal benefits are endless.

There isn't really a "how to" on exactly working with any area of your life, so prayerfully consider any additional changes that God may be pressing on you in the area of your education. The point is not to get more free time, but open your life up so that God may work in you even more.

To Surrender

"I don't want to go to the INCH conference!" I whined out sulkily to my patient parent. I knew I was being rude and disagreeable, and I did truly want to go-but I didn't want to miss my friend's Nutcracker performance during the second day of the conference, and I was simply giving mother a hard time. After several more grumpy and cross words, I tumbled into my bed, upset and angry. The next day-the day of the INCH conference itself-would be an absolute failure, I had decided.

That is a small taste of me. Or what I used to be. I was the definition of "nominal Christian." Unfortunately...I was built from the exact blueprint of the modern "Christian" teenager, believe it or not. There were few things in my life that I actually deemed wrong-modern Christian messages said it was okay to listen to non-Christian music, flirt, waste time on the TV and internet, and many other seemingly "harmless" things. That is the person that went into the doors of the Lansing Center for the INCH conference that day-but a different person came out. Not a widely different person, no outward major changes had occurred. But inwardly, something had altered. It was to alter even more over the next few months-but this was a start. That night, on May 20th, 2011, I sat outside on my front porch and did something that I had never done before-I put down one of the parts of my life at God's feet. And I have continued to do so since-piece by piece. (And I did get to attend the Nutcracker performance.) The next month I was more radient than I have ever been, "radient with the joy of the Lord."

I can't give this story without being honest-I developed a "crush" on someone I met at my summer camp. It let nowhere, and although I attempted to give my feelings over to God, slowly but surely it drew me away. And after only a month, I was unfortunately not far from where I had started. Disheartened, I worked my way back-slowly this time, due to the added weight of school and activities beginning again. For some reason, I couldn't seem to attain that unhindered relationship again for almost two months. Then, I pulled out some of the notebooks that I had used before-and as I opened one little green one, it hit me. With a start, I remembered what I had forgotten, the key to my relationship with Christ: surrender.

Surrender is absolutely crucial to the Christian life. It is the invitation to Jesus to come inside and take control, and to hand over to Him pieces of your life with shaking hands and crying out for Him to take it and use it as He wills, not as you will. It is the kicking out of the flesh and the refusal to let it back inside. It is the abandoning of self for Christ, of flesh for the spirit. And once you find it, TRULY find it, you can never go back-for your life is completely altered, forever changed. When you truly see the power of Jesus, you can never go back.

It is all about the cross. When you see the power, when you see the love, when you see the sacrifice, when you see the grace, the truth, the perfection, and the breaking of the chains you can no longer bear yourself and your sins, you fall on your face in tears and say "I need you, Lord! And I give you all of myself, every little piece of it!" When you see that the almighty God of everything who made everything and who is over everything, who is enthroned in majesty and all the angels worship before him, and you see that He came down as a little baby born to an unmarried teenage girl in a tiny town-and that He died a horrible death on a bloody cross so that you could be free, and when you see that you are not living free from sin in spite of that sacrifice you can no longer stand before God-and you offer yourself and say "Everything I have is yours Lord! Take me! Use me for Your glory!" And that's when true fulfillment and joy and hope and radiance-pure radiance-is found, when you give your life to Him and say that it is no longer yours. And you fall at His feet, totally knowing that you do not deserve what was done for you, He looks you in the eyes and says "I do not condemn you. Now go, and sin no more." And then the only thing you can do is turn around and thank Him wash His feet with your tears and then go out and serve Him and proclaim the most important thing in history, in the world, in our loves-the cross.

I might just say, if you didn't read that as a rant-go back and read it as so.

May I now say that I am not a perfect being in my spiritual life. I am not yet free from sin. But I am working for it, on the platform of prayer and the study of His word and His character. I am gaining eternal life and glory-at the expense of simply me. And I am not much, I'll tell you that. But His grace is sufficient for me, and His power is made perfect in my weakness.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

(Jude 1:24-25 ESV)

LOVING God.

It's been a little while since I've posted on here.

Hmm, funny how often I say that. I guess high school (even when you're homeschooled!) keeps you pretty busy!

So my message is titled "LOVING God". If you have paid any attention to the modern Christian messages (especially in the music industry), you will have heard the blaring message of love between God and us. This concept is 100% Biblical, but somehow, despite hearing this message and desiring to have it become true, many Christians seem to miss the point. Why? (Side note: I'm not saying that I'm necessarily a huge fan of all the lovey-dovey songs about God that sound more like they're about another human...what my sweet mommy likes to call "God is my boyfriend songs").

Loving God is extremely important. There are so many Biblical verses I could pull for this one. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mine and with all your strength." (Mark 12:30) is just one of many examples. The Song of Solomon is a picture of the love not only between a man and a woman, but also between God and His church, and in Revelation the church [believers] is pictured as the bride of Christ. When you are truly in love with God, it is beautiful and amazing. Loving God is so much more fulfilling than loving anyone or anything else. But for some reason, Christians-children of God, the bride of Christ, who are promised the Holy Spirit-often feel very far from God. This at first seems to be very surprising, but under further inspection, the answer is clear.

Loving God comes with action. Jesus says we must "take up our cross daily and follow Him". We have to learn to follow Him, but there's only one way to follow Him: by taking up our cross. Too many Christians (I myself was once included) expect "cheap grace," or "cheap love", which means you get the grace (or love) of God without any price to yourself and your flesh. But the Bible extols a "costly grace (love)", which means that we can truly obtain it only at some cost to ourselves. You can't follow Jesus and leave your cross behind you, because that cross is the way you follow Him. So too many people want to have a complete, full, joyful, and beautiful relationship with God (which is one the most beautiful thing in life) without having to alter their current lifestyle at all. This is unbiblical, however, as I have already said. The only way to truly know Christ is to change your life to show that reality.

No, this does not mean becoming legalistic or to never leave your Bible. And you can't find a true relationship with Christ in yourself, by trying to be as good as a Christian as you can be-because you will fail. The only thing to do is fall at his feet and surrender, one by one, the parts of your life to Him. Once your life starts to follow Him, inevitably your heart will too.

If you really desire to discover more in this area of your life...I'd recommend any book by the Eric and/or Leslie Ludy.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. -Matthew 6:21

Set Free.

I know I've already posted about the forgiveness and freedom of guilt from sins, so I'm sorry if I end up crossing topics. I'll try not to.

But anyway, this isn't about forgiveness of sins, although it is along the same lines. But I feel that it is a message that you can not hear too many times.

It is about living a life free from sin.

I feel like the wrong message is being proclaimed around Christendom today. Forgiveness is the key point-and that it should be! Forgiveness is an amazing, beautiful, and comforting thing, and hope in our darkness. But people don't often mention the fact that there is something even more amazing, beautiful, and comforting-to get out of that darkness. Maybe it comes with the modern Christian assumption that we don't have to be different from the world and we shouldn't "judge" people on what their personal lives-even if they're doing something wrong. Everyone's forgiven, so it's okay right?

Well, that's true. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9 ESV) There are a million passages I could cite that prove that we are forgiven. But I'm not focusing on that. I'm focusing on freedom from sin. You've probably heard of Romans 6-8. Those are a couple of long, confusing chapters. Of course, people often omit mention of chapter 5, which I think is essential as well. They speak of our freedom from sin, and how we no longer have to listen to it! We are not slaves to sin anymore-which means that there is no requirement for us to sin, and we as Christians have the ability not to sin! I would much rather be able to go on without sinning than going on asking for forgiveness.

But wait! Nobody can be perfect, this mindset isn't realistic or fair! Yes, I agree with that. And that's why God offers us forgiveness all the time, because we can't be perfect! But here's how I think of it; if you're not fighting for perfection, what are you fighting for? The answer, obviously, is sin. I like the way I've heard it said-"sin becomes the exception rather than the rule." We may not be able to root out occasional sins from our lives, but we can and must get rid of habitual sins that are in control of our lives. Actually, the Bible makes it clear that real Christians do not let sin run around unchecked in their lives! But are you saying that everyone who is a Christian has to have no habitual sins to qualify? Of course not! I have broken several bad habits, but I still have sins that I'm trying to pull out of my soul, stuff like a quick temper with my little siblings and others. But we must be on an active patrol, watching for sin, and the moment we see it, making quick actions to get it out of our lives as fast as we can.

I've found several ways to break habitual sins that seem to work; and I'll compile a short list:

1. Fill your mind with the Word of God. When Jesus was tempted, He quoted Scripture back at Satan. It really does help to do that; to use my previous example, when I am tempted to become upset with my siblings, I think of James 1:20-"for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God." If you find verses that denounce your sin, when Satan comes, tell him that you know the truth.

2. Pray-defensively and offensively. It does help to pray to God to deliver you, but another thing that helps is to pray for someone else, especially for someone else's salvation-because Satan hates nothing more than someone coming to Christ. When Satan sees that you are becoming a prayer warrior for Christ, he'll back off.

3. Run from temptation. Often, it is a physical action. Choosing to turn your eyes, ears, or body away from whatever is tempting you. Even if it's not (a bad thought, for example) do the utmost you can to draw yourself away from it. I've found that with thoughts, one thing I do is I quickly think of a Christian song and play it through in my head as I pray. It drowns out whatever was going to enter my head. I've also learned what I call "warning thoughts" as well-if I feel like a thought is straying, I cut it off right then and there. The Bible commands us to "Take every thought captive."

Remember, you are set free-and you are able to stay away from sin. If there is any verse I would recommend you to memorize out of the whole Bible, one of the top ones would be this: "No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it." (1 Corinthians 10:13 ESV) Never forget-He knows. Don't say that it is too hard, for Satan really tempted Him with the world-and He turned it down.

If you're not fighting for perfection, what are you fighting for?

Sola Fide.

This is a touchy, touchy subject. And I am aware that I might offend some of my readers because they don't agree with what I am saying. But I felt like God was telling me that I need to make this point. Sola Fide. Faith alone.

Sola Fide was one of the main points of the Reformation. The Reformation (to give a short background) began when the protestants split from the Catholic church in a movement lead by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others. Sola Fide, along with Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), were statements of the different principles between them and the church. From these stem main points about what we believe.

Faith alone is the principle of salvation by faith. And only faith. In Paul's time (and apparently before), a belief was running through the Jews (and early Christians) that salvation could be attained by works. Paul wrote extensively on this topic, clearly presenting that works are worthless without faith and without a proper heart. This belief, however, is even more prevalent in this time than it was then. Even some people who say they don't believe in salvation by works, they unknowingly do. I feel like Sola Fide is such an important principle that I would write about it in a post.

Paul is clear that works, without faith, are dead. But James sports a seemingly contradictory statement: faith without works is dead. How can both of these things be true? People who say that salvation needs works along with it point out the passages of James. But what if it's like two different sides of a coin? Paul was pointing out that works, without a proper heart (which is what God sees) mean nothing eternally. Salvation can only be attained by faith. James, means that a heart for God will and should have good works. Jesus says He knows believers by their fruits. But if you believe that you can only go to heaven by good works, than you contradict stories in the Bible. For example, when Jesus was on the cross, a thief, being crucified next to him, voiced his faith. Jesus told him that He would see the man in paradise. Had this man done anything? No. His only good work was believing in Christ, since before you have faith your works mean nothing-and even if they had, it didn't seem like he had many to show. Also, many times Jesus told people that their faith made them well, not their works. Also, Paul speaks in Philippians of his perfection when conformed to the law and works-and he counted none of it as gain. How could he count none of it as gain if it had any eternal value?

Now don't get me wrong. Works are good, and should be everywhere in a believer's life. It's when you start relying on them to get you to heaven or to earn favor with God where it becomes a stumbling block. Let's just pretend that for almost all of your life you were pretty much free from sin, and you never stopped doing good works. Let's just pretend that your fruits numbered 100 from this venture. (I know it's unrealistic, but bear with me.) When it comes you judgement day, you have your 100 fruits and you look around and see people with their 2 fruits and their 5 fruits, and even people who only have 1 fruit. But when God comes up, you see that the requirement is 100,000 fruits. Then you realize that you don't have enough, and neither does anyone else. But salvation is a free gift, and that is what bridges the gap of 999, 900 fruits. More than that, even. We cannot rely on our own works. When we rely on our works, our salvation is found in ourselves. But salvation is found in no other name than the name of Jesus! Salvation is found in faith, not works. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved." Not "Believe and do good works, and you will be saved." Works stem from our beliefs, not the other way around.

So we are to rely, not on self, but on God. The Bible clearly speaks that our salvation is is only found in faith. We are supposed to rely on God. Sola Fide. Faith Alone.