26 Dec How can you better steward your time and work in 2023?
Jesus devoted roughly 25 percent of his words in the Gospels to the resources God has entrusted to our stewardship. This includes some 28 passages in the Gospels. In the Old and New Testaments combined, there are over 800 verses on the subject, addressing topics ranging from planning and budgeting, to saving and investing, to debt and tithing. Furthermore, money and wealth and possessions are among the greatest idols in our culture, and there is simply no way to be a disciple of Jesus apart from learning to worship God. That worship includes the stewardship of time, talents, and treasures as the average person has around 27,000 days on the earth during which time, they will speak 400,000-800,000 words.
Time
God has meaningful and purposeful things for His people to accomplish during their life on the earth (Ephesians 2:10). To accomplish this, we must always seek God’s priorities for our life and remain devoted to them and balance our work and Sabbath so that we can steward our time well. We only get sixty minutes an hour, twenty-four hours a day, and seven days a week. No one gets any more time, and so we have to wisely invest our time rather than waste a moment of it.
The opening pages of the Bible reveal that for six days, God worked, and on the seventh day, God rested from His work. The Ten Commandments establish a rhythm for us patterned after God’s, with a seven-day week marked by six days of work and one day of Sabbath (Exodus 20:11).
Work
Until roughly 30 years of age, Jesus worked as a carpenter. For the remaining roughly three years of his life, Jesus said He was about his Father’s work (John 4:34; 5:17, 36). Jesus’ ministry work included exhausting preaching, teaching, demon-confronting, feeding, healing, traveling by foot, and more.
Both the Old and New Testaments have much to say about work including that God made us to work, work hard, find some satisfaction in our work, provide sustenance by our work, and work by the grace that God gives us (Genesis 2:15; Proverbs 18:9; 21:25; Ecclesiastes 3:22; 2 Thessalonians 3:10; 1 Corinthians 15:10). Any work done unto the Lord is an act of worship that God rewards, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ “(Colossians 3:23–24).
In 2022, how did you steward your time and work? Which one needs the most improvement to honor God in 2023?
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