Wasted Time. Wasted Efforts

Wasted Time. Wasted Efforts 

by David Brenneman 

"Do not fret because of evildoers, Be not envious toward wrongdoers. For they will wither quickly like the grass And fade like the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord;

And He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord,

Trust also in Him, and He will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light

And your judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes. Cease from anger and forsake wrath. Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing. For evildoers will be cut off,

But those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land. Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more; And you will look carefully for his place and he will not be there. But the humble will inherit the land And will delight themselves in abundant prosperity." Psalms 37:1-11.

Whether you are saved or you are not...you spend time, energy and effort doing life. 

What true fruits come from what you pursue?  What real eternity-difference-making fruits come from what you've planted in your life?  Are you at all putting your efforts into whatever is important to Jesus?  

I skim through posts of others and can see what people consider as important to them.  For some, it's family, friends, God even.   Others, you wonder why they are so passionate about things that don't matter in the eternal scheme of things.  Wasted energy, wasted emotions.  

If anyone who weren't a Believer took those things written as a testimony...they wouldn't see God at all.  

When God wasn't at the center of the lives of His chosen people...they became people who had no real regard for His truth.  

Do you regard the truths of God's word as more valuable than gold?  Or do the various things of this world hold more of your attention, efforts, than what God is trying to do in your life?

All I once held dear, built my life upon

All this world reveres, and wars to own

All I once thought gain I have counted loss

Spent and worthless now, compared to this

Knowing You, Jesus

Knowing You

There is no greater thing

You're my all, You're the best

You're my joy, my righteousness

And I love You, Lord

Yeah-yeah

Now my heart's desire is to know You more

To be found in You and known as Yours

To possess by faith what I could not earn

All-surpassing gift of righteousness

Knowing You, Jesus

Knowing You

There is no greater thing

You're my all, You're the best

You're my joy, my righteousness

And I love You, Lord

Oh, to know the power of Your risen life

And to know You in Your sufferings

To become like You in Your death, my Lord

So with You to live and never die

Knowing You, Jesus

Knowing You

There is no greater thing

You're my all, You're the best

You're my joy, my righteousness

You're my all, You're the best

You're my joy, my righteousness

You're my all, You're the best

You're my joy, my righteousness

And I love You, Lord

You're my all, You're the best

You're my joy, my righteousness

And I love You, Lord

-"Knowing You Jesus" Graham Kendrick 

Are you giving Jesus a good reputation in the life you live?  

A simple yes or no answer.  Either you are all in or you're not.  When the children of Israel truly followed the Lord Jesus as He had instructed them...life was better than they could possibly have imagined.  

The work of Believers is not to be caught up in the things of this world that will inevitably become traps to their soul's strength.  

I can't fathom how people calling themselves Christians are so rude, angry, disrespectful...and justify it in the name of a sport.  They are to be first and foremost representing Jesus. 

I can't begin to understand how people who are supposed to be showing the love of Christ Jesus to a lost world behave as they do and sleep at night.  

Does not the soul of another matter to them as much as it does to Jesus?

So much wasted time, wasted emotions, wasted effort in living life.  When a Believer stands before Jesus...and their lived are tested as if by fire...all that will be burned up and counted as loss.

Psalms 37 points us towards delighting ourselves in the Lord.  Not in what this world holds dear.  If it's important to the world, it isn't important to Jesus.  

Are you investing your time in your relationship with Jesus?  Or are you wasting what little time on this Earth that you have been given?  

If the Church today were as interested in living the Christian life as they did at the Church's beginning...what kind of world would we be living in?  People then loved to give unconditionally.  People then were selling off whatever they had to help others in the body of Christ.  People lived lives that the Spirit used to draw people to Jesus.  

Me, personally, I gave up on anything to do with sports, with many other things, because I saw how it wasn't bringing out Christ Jesus in me.  It was me being rude, me being angry for no good reason.  It was me degrading others.  Was me tearing people down and not building them up. It was me not being a Christ-like example.  There's no Godly excuse acceptable unto God to tear people down and to gloat over it.  It was extremely convicting.  

How well do you think it will sit with you to find out that your words, your behavior, pushed someone away from Jesus Christ for salvation?  You're not going to find anything good said by the Spirit in the Bible about things considered as "just kidding".

What we do in life should be unto the Lord Jesus Christ first.  We who are in Christ are representing Him to a lost world.  There are many times I am convicted because I realized too little too late that my attitude or behavior wasn't right before Jesus. 

My Dear Reader, I don't know if it matters as much to you as it does to Jesus, but how you live your life matters in the plan of God for mankind. 

It's not at all easy to keep taking every thought captive.  2 Corinthians 10:5 "We are destroying arguments and all arrogance raised against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ," isn't a suggestion at living life in Christ, it's training in righteousness.  

Is knowing Jesus more valuable to you than whatever is in your life?  Are you going to be commended by Jesus for how well you represented Him to the world you lived in?

All NASB 1995 and NASB Scripture Excerpts used by permission. (C) Lockman Foundation.