You Spend Eight Months of Your Life Opening Junk Mail

Our church is studying John Ortberg's book, The Me I Want to Be, and I really appreciate the framework it gives us for describing the life of a disciple of Jesus. Paraphrasing from the overall structure of the book (and the groundbreaking accompanying tool called Monvee), disciples of Jesus are careful with how their lives are arranged in these four areas: our minds, our time, our relationships, and our experiences for others. This post is from my message on redeeming the time, which ties together the first two of these areas.

In Ephesians 5, Paul instructs, “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” Or, I appreciate how some of the older translations say it, encouraging us to “redeem the time.”
Obviously Paul understood that, in his day, redeeming the time was an important part of people learning to live wisely. If it was important then, it is at least as important today. While it has always been a key element of living wisely, perhaps the need has never been more urgent than it is for us today, and all of the signs in our world point to this urgency continuing to become more and more pressing.
Consider these facts that James Bryan Smith shares in his book which our Apprentice Groups study, The Good and Beautiful God. He says that, in a lifetime, an average person spends:
  • six months at traffic lights
  • eight months opening junk mail
  • one year searching through desk clutter
  • two years trying to call people who are not in
  • three years in meetings
  • five years waiting in lines
In a single day an average American will
  • commute 45 minutes
  • be interrupted 73 times
  • receive 600 advertising messages
  • watch 4 hours of television
We must learn to redeem the time!
There is quite a bit of overlap between how disciples of Jesus through the centuries have arranged their lives in respect to their time, and how they have arranged them in respect to their minds. Time is always passing. We can neither slow it down nor speed it up. It just is what it is, without respect to what we think about it. Sometimes we feel like time is on our side, and other times it’s a fierce enemy, like for the old basketball coach who said that his teams never lost a single game, they only ran out of time. It’s similar with our minds, because as time is always passing, our minds are always absorbing the things that we put into them, whether those things be helpful or destructive. Paul urged Christians to be transformed by the renewint of their minds, because he understood that the kind of people that you and I are becoming is largely the outcome of how we think. If we “set our minds on things above,” and think great thoughts over the course of our lives, our habits of thinking will play tremendous roles in determining the character that is in us when we come to our last days. And it’s the same with our time.
I’ll invite you to do a mental exercise with me to illustrate. Take a moment and bring to mind a person that you have greatly admired. It may be someone you have known personally, or perhaps you only admired them from a distance, but bring to mind someone whose quality of character has inspired you.
Have someone in mind? Now bring to mind someone as unlike that person as you can think of. Again, it may be someone you have known well or not, but think of someone whose life and character is to you the epitome of being un-admirable. You may even feel a knot rise up in your stomach at these thoughts.
Now, think of the lives that these two people led which either developed them into very admirable or un-admirable people. Two things that are surely differences between them are the ways that they thought and what they did with the 24 hours per day that each of them were given. The un-admirable person in your mind surely had long patterns of thinking un-admirable thoughts, and this led them to use their time in un-admirable ways. And just as surely, the admirable person in your mind took Paul’s advice when he said in Philippians 4, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Then, these patterns of thinking led them to use the time that they were given in ways that made them into people who were true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, and praiseworthy, because we really do become what we think.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, paid a lot of attention to these things. He was extremely careful, even highly meticulous with his time, keeping records of what he did hour by hour, and recording the activities of his days in his journals. He lived in such a watchful way over his own time, because he understood the role that what we do with our time has in shaping who we become.
Wesley talked often about “redeeming the time.” He said, “[Save] all the time you can for the best purposes; buying up every fleeting moment out of the hands of sin and Satan.”
And I love this quote from him: “Redeem the time. Improve the present moment. Buy up every opportunity of growing in grace, or of doing good. Let not the thought of receiving more grace tomorrow make you negligent of today.”

 

Renewing My Mind and Redeeming My Time

I haven't written much to post lately, largely because I've been preaching more than usual. So, just incase you're interested, here are videos (and audio is available here): [vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/15407408 w=400&h=300] The Me I Want to Be: Changing Your Mind (CWS) from First United Methodist Church on Vimeo.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/15411493 w=400&h=300] The Me I Want to Be: The Energizing Impact of Scripture from First United Methodist Church on Vimeo.

Advice to Christians from the World's Leading Hindu

E. Stanley Jones was a widely respected Methodist missionary of the last century (and, I am proud to say, a fellow alumnus of Asbury College, although he graduated ninety-three years before I did). During his ministry, he had influence all around the world, from counseling American presidents to being an evangelist in Japan, but most of his efforts were focused on India. He even came to have the reputation as “the Billy Graham of India” because of how deeply he impacted the country.

During his time in India, he became a friend of Mahatma Gandhi. Jones’ autobiography, A Song of Ascents, recounts stories of their interactions with one another. Jones says that once, while holding a series of lectures with a group of students, it came to his attention that Gandhi was nearby and that he had been invited to visit. During their conversation, Jones wanted to ask Gandhi, at that time the nation’s leading Hindu, what he believed Christians should do to contribute to India’s uplift and redemption. Gandhi immediately replied:

“I would suggest four things: First, that all you Christians, missionaries and all, must begin to live more like Jesus Christ. Second, that you practice your religion without adulterating it or toning it down. Third, that you emphasize love and make it your working force, for love is central in Christianity. Fourth, that you study the non-Christian religions more sympathetically to find the good in them, to have a more sympathetic approach to the people.”

Jones goes on to talk about why, despite Gandhi’s tremendous admiration for Jesus, he never became a Christian: while living in South Africa, Gandhi saw Christians do horrible things in their religiously backed support of apartheid. In other words, although he had a great deal of respect for Jesus, he could never see the value of the Christian religion because he saw so little of Jesus’ character in the lives of many who claimed to be followers of Jesus.

Even though we are now so far removed from this conversation between Jones and Gandhi, both in time and culture, we would still do very well to heed his advice. If we are going to always seek to show God’s love to others in practical ways, people must be able to see Jesus’ character in us. We must begin to live more like Jesus Christ, practice our religion without toning it down, and emphasize love in all that we do. Imagine the impact it could have if even just ten percent of the people in your community resolutely decided to live this way. The impact would be staggering. If we continue seeking to find ways, big and small, to let others know that they are loved by God, while seeking to pattern our entire lives after Jesus, life as we know it would be radically different. Our families and friends would change, our communities would change, and we would never know the extent of how far around the world the ripples of such a commitment would reach.

We are sure to find that as we try this, God is there helping us. It is the life God wants for us, and grace to strengthen us is abundantly available along the way.

I'm Just Here for the Food

Dr. Roy Lauter was a professor at Asbury College while I was a student there. He grew up in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, spoke with a thick mountain accent, and loves to tell stories (some of them true- others just because he's a good preacher) about the life he knew growing up there.

One of his stories had to do with a cousin, Rembrandt Tacket. Rembrandt was not his real name, but that is how he came to be known to family and friends because he was an enormously talented painter. Although he never had any desire to give up his hillbilly lifestyle, he became known as one of the most talented folk artists in Kentucky.
A wealthy horse farm owner from Lexington became familiar with Rembrandt’s paintings, and wanted to hire him for a project. So she drove out into the mountains one day and tracked him down, finding him sitting in his yard in his overalls. She introduced herself and explained that she would like to hire him to paint a portrait of Jesus’ last supper with his disciples.
Rembrandt began to protest, saying that he wasn’t much of a religious guy, but when the wealthy woman mentioned that she was prepared to pay $25,000 for the work, he agreed and said he would have it ready in a week.
The week passed, and the wealthy woman returned to see what Rembrandt had been able to do. He unveiled the painting, and it was beautiful. She had trouble believing that an artist with no training and so little education could produce such a wonderful piece. As she studied the painting, however, she noticed something wrong. She double-checked to make sure, “1,2,3,4,…13! Mr. Tackett, there are 13 disciples with Jesus in your painting!”
“Is that a problem?” Rembrandt responded.
“Yes, it’s a problem. I’m not paying you $25,000 for a picture of the Last Supper that has 13 disciples!”
“Don’t worry, ma’am. I can fix it. Just come back tomorrow, and I’ll have your painting with 12 disciples.”
She left and returned the next day. What was Rembrandt’s solution? He had taken the extra man in the painting, and added a sign hung around his neck that said, “I’m not a disciple. I just came for the food.”
The author of the book of Hebrews gives us a similar image to encourage his readers to go on to maturity in Christ:
Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned. (Hebrews 6:7-8)

It’s easy in our Christian lives to settle for showing up for the food, or to be the land that drinks in the rain without ever producing the appropriate fruit. In a culture like ours, where even in financial times like we are experiencing now the large majority of us still live very comfortably and free from persecution or danger in our lives with God, it seems that the option will always be available to us to show up, enjoy the good things about being a Christian and being part of a good church, but never seriously enter into Jesus’ school of living as one of his disciples.

The author of Hebrews goes on to say that we cannot stay where we are in our relationship with God, but that we must continue pressing on, all the way to maturity in Christ. May it be so for each of us.
Imagine what it would be like if all of us decided to fully pursue the life that God has for us: if we set ourselves to learning daily from God how to live our lives through reflecting on the Scriptures, if we committed ourselves to finding ways to do good to others around us, and if we took any means necessary to rid our lives of the things that hold us back from God’s best for us.
It is wonderful to think about, and the best part is that because of God’s limitless grace given to us in Jesus, it is possible. For you, for me, and for all of us together, full and abundant life in Christ is available, at hand, and waiting to become a reality among us.
We can begin by thinking of a way that each of us can live our lives as God wants today, and then make it happen. We will all be in it together, and God is with us.