How Much Time Do You Have?

By: Gary L. Hutchens

   Time- precious, fleeting, uncertain…  All of us go through twenty four hours of it every day, sixty minutes every hour, sixty seconds every minute.  That’s 1440 minutes and 86,400 seconds every day.  That sounds like a lot, but it goes by so quickly that it’s gone almost before we know it.

​   Of course, the clock reloads each day, and we start all over again with a new allotment of time.  The problem is, time in this world is not perpetual.  Each day, each minute, each second that ticks off the clock is gone forever.  When we use a moment in time, however we use it or abuse it, it’s used up.  It can never be called back.  Each moment is potentially unique unto itself, depending on what we do with it.
   Life is fragile.  Each of us has only so many twenty four hour days in his life.  The number varies from individual to individual, but the number is finite for each of us.  The Psalmist states that, on average, we can expect a lifespan of seventy to eighty years.  In terms of eternity that is barely the blink of an eye.
   The scriptures use a number of different frames of reference to illustrate the brevity of life.  It is “a breath that passes away and does not come again” (Ps. 78:39).  Job also referred to life as being but a breath.  He further described his days as being “swifter than a weaver’s shuttle” (Job 7:6-7).  The Psalmist (Ps. 102:11) and Solomon (Eccl. 6:12) both described time as passing “like a shadow.”  James states that life is “a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (Jas. 4:17).
   A natural question for each of us would be, “What are you doing with your time?”  A considerable amount of time is taken up with working, eating and sleeping.  What do you do with the rest?  Just about every one of us is busy, but what are the activities with which we are busy?  Are they important, productive, essential?  Everyone needs some time in which to relax, rest and recoup.  But very few of us are not guilty of wasting, frittering away, a great deal of our time.
   The number one focus of life in this world should be getting to Heaven.  How much time are you spending getting ready for eternity?  Are you studying God’s word, learning how to live your life according to His will?  Have you obeyed what you’ve learned?  Are you actively serving Him through the “good works” which He prepared for you to do before you were ever born (Eph. 2:10)?
   Time in this world will one day run out (2 Pet. 3:10).  The Lord is coming one day, and when He does, time will be up for mankind.  God has “appointed a day on which He will judge the world” (Acts 17:31).  If the Lord does not come first, time in your life will one day run out.  It is also “appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27).
   Either way, your time is running down.  With each passing moment, your time is being used up.  You only have so much time left to get ready for the day when you will have no more time.  Another natural question: “How much time do you have?”  You don’t know.  It could be many years, or it could be just a few more hours.  Are you ready for your time to come to an end, or do you need to make some changes while you still have time?…