Devotional: Make use of God’s gift of time

Time moves quickly. It hardly seems that it should be this late in the year, already. We have to keep moving, or time soon leaves us behind.

Yet, our time is in God’s hands. He made it. He has given it to us as a gift. He desires us to use it wisely for the benefit of others around us.

God is outside of time. Yet, He stepped into time to become one of us. One of the miraculous things about Jesus was that, through Him, God experienced our existence in time. He lived from day to day, seeing the sun rising and setting and the seasons passing.

Jesus’ reason for being in our time was so that He could live the human life required by God. Our use of life and of time fails to match up to God’s expectations, but Jesus’ presence in life and time fulfilled everything God required.

There came a time when it seemed time ran out, even for Jesus. Our failures of time and life weighed heavily on Him, and time and life stopped for Him when He died on a cross.

However, time could not remain stopped for God, and life could not remain dead. When Jesus rose, He added a new dimension to time. He made time without end available to us with Him. Life took on new directions because it could now be lived forever with Him.

Time may seem a bit drab and dull, at times, but when it is lived in a faith relationship with Jesus, it becomes new and exciting every moment. It is that way because of His gift to us — His gift of love, forgiveness, life, and time forever.

This story was originally published April 14, 2017 at 10:39 AM with the headline "Devotional: Make use of God’s gift of time."