Making the Most of What You Have, Part 5

You may already give God 10% of your income, but what if you gave him 10% of your time? Pastor Paul Shepherd explores the question next in today's Destined for Victory message, Making the Most of What You Have. But first, he and I would like to share a few words about the reality of the Resurrection. You know, as part of this month's celebration of Easter, we've prepared a booklet which will encourage you with the hope and power of the Resurrection.

It's called He's Alive, and I'll give you the details of how you can get your copy in a moment. But right now, Pastor Paul has joined me in the studio for a few moments. Pastor, why should the fact that Jesus is alive be so important to those who claim to follow him? The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the truth that distinguishes our faith from all other religions. When we think about it, if Jesus was only an outstanding leader and teacher while on earth, and many people, even non-Christians, realize that he was. But if that's all he was, then he is to be named among great men. But we who are Bible believers, we who are followers of Christ, we proclaim, because we believe it is absolutely true, that the historical fact is not only that he lived and died, but that he rose from the grave on the third day. He lives now. And he still lives.

So that's a different message than you'll get from any religion anywhere in the world. He's not just a great man, he's the God-man. He is the Redeemer. He is the one who, Revelation says, was dead, but he's alive. See, Wayne, you got me preaching, who was dead, but he's alive, and he is coming again for his church. I'm excited because Easter is something we need to all rejoice about, because it is what makes our belief system different than any other in the whole world. And I praise God that that day is approaching, and once again, we're going to rejoice in the truth of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

For now, we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. What a day that will be, Pastor Paul. Thank you. Again, the booklet is called He's Alive, and it's our gift to you this month for your generous donation to Destined for Victory. Call 855-339-5500 or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online.

You can also mail your gift to Destined for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538. Take at least a tithe of your waking hours and dedicate it. For many of us, we're awake approximately 120 hours a week. I would be encouraging you to take at least 12 hours more if necessary for the purpose of worship and spiritual development.

Now, what do I mean when I talk about that area? That's a great question, isn't it? What if we set aside 10% of our waking hours, roughly 12 a week, and offer them solely to God?

What would those hours look like? What might our lives begin to look like? Answers come your way next in today's Destined for Victory message, making the most of what you have.

Once again, here's Pastor Paul Sheppard. Now you don't know how long you're going to live, how much time you'll have on earth. No one can predict that ahead of time. But you know that your time is shorter than it used to be. You don't have as much time now as you had yesterday.

Sure don't have as much time as you had last year. And your body, in fact, when you see your body changing, your body is just reminding you that time is moving along. You got to stop and pay attention to the road signs on the journey of life. And when you look in the mirror, you see some road signs. You see things that you didn't see before.

Come on, talk to me. You see things, you see little things appearing, wrinkles where you used to be firm. And your hair used to be full and jet black, now you see colors showing up.

And you didn't go to the store and buy colors, but they just showed up. And it's just your body reminding you time is moving on. You can't do everything physically you used to do. I feel sorry for men in their middle age crisis who don't handle it right. I feel sorry for men, I'm just a man I used to be when I was 25. And here he is, gut down to God knows where, buttoning his shirt way down, trying to still act like he's young, talking about he's the man he used to be.

If that's what you used to be, you are a pitiful 25-year-old. Don't do that. Don't challenge young folk to things you can't win. I know you used to be a track star, but don't get out there with young folk now. They'll burn that road up with you.

Just tell them what you used to do, pull out your pictures, talk about yesteryear, but don't try to bring that into the now. It's not going to go good if you try to do that. Here's the way the Bible puts it. The Psalmist said in Psalm 90 verse 12, Lord, teach us to number our days that we might apply our hearts to wisdom. Teach me, Lord, to live where I am. Teach me to be who I am at this season of my life. Teach me to number my days that I might apply my heart to wisdom. In other words, Lord, teach me to live in the here and now, knowing I don't have forever on this earth. Now, I will live forever, but on this earth, I have limited time. When I leave here, I'll go to be with the Lord, where time will not matter.

But for now, time matters. And so the Psalmist said, teach me to number my days that I might apply my heart to wisdom. Jesus said in John 9 verse 4, he said, we must work the works of him who sent us while it's day.

While it's day, it's day in your life, he said, but night is coming when no one can work. In other words, the things God wants you to do with your time, you have to be diligent about those here and now. So the first thing we want to do is assess the time God has given us. We don't know what the full length of our years will be, but we do know that God blesses all of us with 168 hours a week.

Everybody gets the same amount. So if you're one of those people who in times past has said, you know, I never can find enough time, I never have enough time, I want to ask you to quit saying that, take that phrase out of your vocabulary. You do have enough time to do everything God has called you to do. God would not give you responsibilities and callings and not give you the time to fulfill them.

So never again say, I don't have enough time. You have enough time to do the will of God. That's the one thing I love about serving God, whenever you get in sync with the will of God, you can do it here and now. Doesn't matter how much time you've blown in your past, doesn't matter how many mistakes you've made in your past, doesn't matter how late you came to faith in Christ, you can do the will of God today and moving forward. In Christ, you can always begin again.

That's one thing about grace. Grace has an eraser. It can always erase your past. It can erase your mistakes.

It can erase, Lord, I wish I knew more when I was younger. Yeah, that's true. Could have done some other things, but now that you're where you are, you can say, Lord, teach me to number my days from this time moving forward and teach me to work the works of Him who sent me while it is day because night is coming when no one can work. So we all have 168 hours a week. The people who are quite fruitful, the people who get the will of God done all the time, they have the same amount of time in a week that you have.

What does that tell you? That tells you that all of us can learn from the precepts and principles of Scripture how to utilize that time in a way that glorifies God. Now there are a number of things that God wants us all to do with our time. So the question is simply, how do we structure our lives in such a way as to get them done? Let me give you some of the things God wants us all to do with our time. Some of these are just broad principles that are true for all of us. God wants us to take time to worship Him and time for spiritual development of our lives.

That's for everybody. Part of your time is to be used to worship God and to develop your life spiritually. We're all called to work, whether it is monetary or non-monetary contribution to the welfare of our families. Everyone's called to work. Please understand that your calling to work has nothing to do with a paycheck. You're called to work even if you're a stay-at-home mom, you've got a job.

If you're a stay-at-home mom, your job is to raise your children in the training and instruction of the Lord, to make them decent citizens, to put some sense in them, to get them well-educated, to get them well-nurtured and loved and properly balanced. You have a job. Don't let anybody say because you don't work out there in the workaday world that you don't have a job.

I wish I liked you. I wish I didn't have a job. You do have a job. You got kids, you got a job. You got a spouse, you got a job. You got a community, you got a church, you got a job. There are things to do and all of us have to learn that work has much more to do than with a paycheck.

It has to do with fulfilling the calling of God on our lives. Everybody's called to work. And those who have to work and go on a paycheck and you still got kids or a spouse, when you come home, you go from work to work. You get home, you're not like, well, I'm off work. No, you're not.

Look around you, you got work. Your kids will not grow up to be productive, fruitful citizens who love God and make major contribution in this world. They won't do that by accident. Nobody ever looked up and said, look at my kids, they have manners. I don't believe it. They know how to speak to people and treat people right. Look at that.

You're not going to be surprised by that because if it happens, it's because you made it happen. You trained them. You taught them right from wrong.

You taught them here's what you do in your life. And so everybody's got a job. So we're called to worship. We're all called to work, whether for monetary or non-monetary contribution to the welfare of our family. We're all called to ministry.

I'll talk about that more when we talk about talent. We're all called to ministry. Every single believer is called to ministry.

You might not be called to vocational ministry, but you are called to serve the needs of other people and God has given you time to do it. God's given us all time to sleep and to rest as part of God's plan. You know that because that's the way he made your body.

If you don't get proper sleep and proper rest, you will jack yourself up. So you can't take that for granted. You got to stop and say, this is part of God's plan. I need some sleep.

I can't keep going. I can't burn the candle at both ends and expect to do the will of God. My body is not made for that. When I get to heaven, I won't need sleep, but right now I need to lay down. And you have to do it.

You have to realize God gives you the time to do it. And you've got to take the time to rest your body. If you don't rest your body, terrible things are going to happen. In fact, in the last message, as I was just beginning to introduce this concept, I gave a formula, sleepy plus hungry equals cranky.

Equals cranky. A whole lot of folks think you need more of the Holy Spirit. And the truth is you just need a good meal and to go to sleep. Reason why you're getting on people's nerves is because your body is out of balance. God made it so that it needs certain fuel and it needs certain rest and recovery.

And without that, you're going to have trouble. I'll never forget when I took my sabbatical in 2006, it was because in 2005, toward the end of that year, my body began to tell me something is really wrong. And I was just going and going and going, serving God and doing what I do, kept my same pace of life for years and years and thought I was going to get by. Never took all the vacation time that I had earned, always just took a little vacation time and then just kept on going. But by my vacation of 2005, I took the entire month of August off and came back to the office the day after Labor Day. And by the end of that workday, I felt like I had not had a vacation at all.

In one day flat, I felt like I hadn't been on vacation. I went home and told Meredith something is wrong. We'll be right back with more of today's Destined for Victory message from Pastor Paul Sheppard, Senior Pastor at Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. Listen to the broadcast on demand at pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net.

There you'll find plenty of great resources in our online store, including books and DVD messages from Pastor Paul. Now here's Pastor once again with the second half of today's Destined for Victory message, Making the Most of What You Have. Couple of weeks later, we had an elders retreat. I told the elders, fellas, something is wrong and explained to them how I was feeling. And some of them said, well, we've been knowing that you've needed much more time and we were waiting for you to figure it out. Some of them had been encouraging me, Pastor, take all your vacation time. Pastor, slow down.

What have you. And they were trying not to bug me. But my body started talking to me along with them and I could no longer ignore it. And they said, what we need to do is find the time for you to get lost. Take as much time as you need and get lost. Don't preach a message. Don't write a book.

Don't do a thing, but go somewhere and chill out. And we set the time, the first part of that year, and for 13 weeks I got lost. Meredith and I jumped on planes. We flew everywhere.

It took about six, seven trips and just went wherever we thought we wanted to go. And folks say, well, can you preach? Well, you know, can't do any preaching. Elders sent me out, said, do not preach a message.

Don't you take a text. Just go somewhere and chill out. One of my trips I went and I went with one of my pastor friends and flew in his plane and he was flying to a meeting. I said, well, since I can't preach, he's my boy, I listen to him preach. And I was kind of preaching vicariously through him, just listening to him.

But I had to rest and relax. One of the best things I ever did. Didn't come anywhere near this church. My pastor friends can't believe. You mean you didn't do a thing?

I didn't do a thing. Didn't talk to folk about church stuff. I didn't even come within miles of this church for three months solid. And I found out that it was God's church because it survived. A lot of my pastor friends say, if I left my church for three months, I wouldn't have a church when I got back.

Well, you got a problem. You need to give your church to God because it's his in the first place. And one day you're going to be separated from the church and they will figure out how to survive and they'll do you like they do one another.

Take you to the edge of town, drop you in a hole, throw dirt in your face. Go back and eat chicken and potato salad. And all of us have to realize your body needs rest and sleep. You also need recreation and relaxation and God gives you time for that. You also need to build significant relationships and nurture those relationships and God gives us time for that. So he gives us time to do all of the things he calls us to do.

The question is, how are we going to get it done? First, we've got to assess the time. Realize how much we actually have, 168 hours a week, that's a lot of time. That's a lot of time. Week in and week out, God gives you a fresh amount of time with which to do his will in all these areas.

So assess it. Secondly, I want to encourage you to dedicate at least a tithe of your waking hours to worship and spiritual development. This is something I learned to do in my life and I'm so glad that I did, to make sure that you prioritize the kingdom of God.

You know why? Because Matthew 6 33, we're familiar with that as it relates to God's promise to supply our material and financial needs. You know that scripture, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And Jesus said, and all the things you need will be added to you, meaning if you take care of God's business, seek his first, put spiritual things first, God will make sure that your needs are met. In the context, he was teaching his disciples not to worry, not to fret, not to wonder how they were going to make it in this world. He said, you do what God has called you to do from a kingdom perspective and God then will meet your needs. In other words, if you take care of God's business, he'll take care of yours.

And all the kinds of things I just mentioned are part of God's plan for your life. And so the first and most important of which is to worship God and to spiritually develop your life. So I want to encourage you to tithe, take at least a tithe of your waking hours and dedicate it. For many of us, we're awake approximately 120 hours a week. Of those 168, many of us about 120 or so are waking hours. And so in that case, I would be encouraging you to take at least 12 hours more if necessary for the purpose of worship and spiritual development.

Now what do I mean when I talk about that area? First of all, I'm talking about worshiping God through prayer and regular reading of his word. Read his word and get into it and talk to God on a regular basis.

He has given you time so that you can commune with him. You worship not only privately, but then you ought to worship publicly and along with others, fellowship with other believers. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 10, do not forsake the assembling of yourself together with other believers. And it said, and do it all the more as you see the day of the Lord's return approaching.

What does that tell you? That tells you that God has given you time not only to have daily time of being in the word and talking to God, but God has given you time to get together with the saints of God regularly. We got to go back, if we're going to fulfill this and do the will of God and please him and hear him say, well done, good and faithful servant. We got to go back to old fashioned going to church. We got a generation of folk who want to serve God on the run, serve God on the move. They want you to convenience their lives to serve God. And they want to have, you know, just hit me on the run, drive through church, virtual church, not the will of God. The Bible said, assemble yourself together. If you're able-bodied, there are people who are sick and shut and you have to provide ways for them to receive the word of God and minister to them where they are. But most of us, God has blessed us with the ability to get out. And if you have that ability, you want to get out and assemble with the people of God. Go to church, old-fashioned going to church.

And that's part of the time God has given you, to assemble yourself with the people of God. Teach your children the same. When they're in your house, that's part of their training and development. Before you send them out in the world, teach them part of your time is to be given to God. Best way to teach them that is while they're in your house, bring them to church. I know some of you don't like it, so it's your house, but it's my pulpit. So you do what you want at your house, but I'm going to tell you the truth from the pulpit.

Then you wrestle with it after that. If your children live in your house, part of your spiritual charge is to put the word of God in them. And if you want to teach them how to live a life that pleases God and part of that is attending church when you are able-bodied and can do so, then you teach them to get up. We're going to church. We're going to negotiate for years with your children and take their emotional temperature and see if they feel like going to church. Never in my life heard that question, uh, son, it's Sunday morning, do you feel like going to church? I don't know what that sounds like.

I never heard anything like that. I heard from another room, y'all better get up if you got 45 minutes. I don't hear any stirring in there. 45 minutes, get in that bathroom, get yourself washed, put on your church clothes. We had church clothes growing up.

Now we can wear anything. We're free in the house of God now and y'all don't have church clothes. We grew up with church clothes and your mother didn't hear you stirring in there.

Get up, get in that bathroom, put on your church clothes, be out this door. I grew up in a generation, some of you did too, where even families that themselves, the adults didn't go to church. They sent their kids to Sunday school because they knew if they were going to raise proper children, they needed some sort of moral foundation and they figured the church is providing it and they would send them. I grew up going to Sunday school with kids whose parents didn't go to our church and while us church kids were walking up the walk, getting ready to go into the church, we'd see cars pull up, little heathen children get out. And they would join us going into Sunday school. Heathen daddy get on back in his car, go on back and do something else with his Sunday.

And I know those days are gone now. But we as people of faith have got to say attending church is part of why God gave me time every week. God give me all these days and you mean I'm not going to take some time and go to the house of worship and say, Lord, thank you for blessing me.

Here on the first day of the week or whenever you worship Saturday, whenever it is, it doesn't matter when you worship, it matters how you worship. And you come together and say, Lord, thank you for time. Thank you for strength.

Thank you for a right mind. Thank you for the ability to get out and worship you. Thank you for the ability to work and to earn a living or to work at home.

Thank you for all that you have done. I worship you. I give you the sacrifice of praise. Thank you for saving me. Thank you for picking me up out of sin. And you show up at church and tell God thank you. Thanks for being here for today's message, making the most of what you have. For more information about the Destined for Victory ministry or Pastor Paul Shepherd's booklet He's Alive, stop by our website pastorpaul.net. Again, that's pastorpaul.net. People say I don't have time to be in a ministry.

Sure you have time. God gave you 168 hours, about 120 of them are waking hours. Part of that you just say, this is my time that I'm going to serve the needs of other people.

I'm not looking to get something directly out of this. I'm just looking to be a blessing. And that's next time in Pastor Paul Shepherd's message, making the most of what you have. Until then remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ you are destined for victory.