Our world is more distracted and distant from God than ever before. How can we use our time wisely? An article from the Worldwide Church of God Leadership Training Series, “How to Organize Your Life God’s Way,” provides a spiritual perspective on personal organization.
“In this lawless, perverse, pleasure-mad society in which we are living,” the article says, “all of God’s people must constantly grapple with the challenge of staying close to God in spite of the world around us. Satan is the god of this world, and he has arrayed the entire society against us to distract us and snare us as we seek to draw near to God and serve Him. Satan is the world’s greatest time-waster, and he has designed this society and this world to waste your time and your life!”
This Is Satan’s Society
Consider how urgent times are: World events are fulfilling Bible prophecy, the nations of Israel are declining, Gentile powers are rising, yet people are more caught up in pleasures and distractions than ever. There is a sort of fog of deception over our world, and it is thickening.
Gerald Flurry writes about this deception in America Under Attack, which explains how determined Satan is to bring down the United States. In the book, Mr. Flurry quotes Mr. Armstrong explaining a Communist plot against the United States. Mr. Armstrong said, “It’s a kind of warfare we don’t understand or know how to cope with. It uses every diabolical means to weaken us from within” This is how Satan operates. He aims to weaken us from within, “sapping our strength, perverting our morals, sabotaging our educational system, wrecking our social structure, destroying our spiritual and religious life, weakening our industrial and economic power, demoralizing our armed forces, and finally after such infiltration, overthrowing our government by force and violence!”
In truth, this kind of warfare comes from Satan. Satan uses this method to weaken the nations of Israel, and he also uses it to weaken us individually. He works hard to weaken us from within. That is where the battle is waged in our personal lives.
“How to Organize Your Life God’s Way” says, “The world is filled with a glittering array of alluring, sensually appealing diversions and material things which are calculated to devour our time, our energy and our very lives!”
This brings in the spiritual dimension. It isn’t just a matter of different ways you can spend your time. This is a calculated, strategic effort to weaken God’s people. It weakens this country and the people in this world, but Satan’s primary target is God’s people. He deliberately creates distractions to devour our time.
“In this end time, God’s Work has more power and greater means to spread God’s truth. With the tools God has given us, we have an unprecedented ability to proclaim God’s message to this world.
“Yet it is right now when Satan has increased the pace of society and ‘jammed the frequency’ with materialistic distractions. He has littered the world with every conceivable gadget, activity, pleasure and late-night entertainment to keep mankind ‘active’ and ‘busy’ from the time he wakes up in the morning to the time he falls into bed exhausted late at night. There is simply no time to stop and ponder the purpose of human existence and where all this is leading” (ibid).
That is talking about the people we are trying to reach with our websites, with the Key of David program, with our magazines and with all our other publications. We are trying to reach a distracted world.
If we are not on guard, we can fall into the same trap as this world. We can get wrapped up in that vortex of distractions, and soon we are not really thinking. Our religion is not a thinking religion. The deep things of God won’t penetrate our minds the way they should.
How are you spending your time? How much of what you spend your time on is actually important? How often do you stop and ponder your life, the world around you or the deep things of God? What occupies your meditation time?
“God’s purpose for giving us life—which is just a span of time—is so for us to build godly character. Everything in our lives that does not lead to that purpose is vanity. It is utterly worthless!” (ibid).
That perspective is easy to forget. Everything in our lives that doesn’t lead to building godly character is vanity.
1 John 2:15-16 establishes our priorities. We cannot forget these verses: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and lust of the eyes, the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”
If it is of Satan’s world, then it is calculated to pull us away from God. It is strategically created to undermine our spiritual life.
“And the world passes away, and the lust thereof,” (verse 17). Everything that is of this world will go away, “but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”
“All of the ‘interesting,’ pleasurable pastimes of this world which Satan has set before us will pass away. Only the character we are now building will remain for eternity”(ibid).
Christ said, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24).
You can’t serve God and materialism. If you want to truly love God and devote your life to Him, then you must structure your life in a way that enables you to devote your time to the things of God. That is not an easy task.
Titus 2:12 says, “[D]enying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly,” The word “soberly” comes from a word meaning “of a sound mind, sane, or in one’s senses. The “party spirit” and the mindlessness so prevalent in this world directly violates verse. The second meaning of “soberly” is curbing one’s desires and impulses, self-control, temperate. This is the opposite of the spirit of this world.
“Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope.” (verses 12-13). Our minds need to be focused on the future; we need to concentrate on the end goal we are striving for.
Verses 13-14 add, “and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us.” Consider Christ’s example and how structured His life was. There was never any moment in His life where He put His own desire above His Father’s. He never thought, You know what, I just need a little me time. I just need to unwind a little bit. But that thinking is common in this world.
He “gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (verse 14). If we live with these priorities, we are going to stand out. It will distinguishGod’s people from everyone else in this world in an astounding way.
“Some brethren still desire to be as much like the world as possible without actually being a part of it, but they are kidding themselves. In an attempt to be ‘balanced,’ many spend hours watching TV, going to movies, ‘shopping,’ playing cards and games, ‘having a beer,’ ‘socializing,’ shooting the breeze and just staying up late. Their standard for ‘balance’ is the world’s, not God’s, and great amounts of time and money are wasted each week on such pursuits for no lasting purpose” (ibid).
Keep Your Life Simple
David’s battle with Goliath illustrates how to keep your life simple. When David was preparing to fight Goliath, God had already rejected Saul as king. He was going to raise up a king after His own heart.
In this example, Saul was being used as an instrument of Satan. He tried to “help” David by burdening him down with unwieldy armor. David realized: Other people might consider this armor helpful, but this is a huge encumbrance to me. This just weighs me down.
All he needed was a slingshot, a few stones and God’s help. He removed the cumbersome armor—the non essential clutter.
The article continues, “In the same way, Satan has surrounded us with all kinds of material things to ‘help us enjoy life.’ While these things, of themselves, may not be wrong, it is impossible for us to serve our Creator and at the same time to overly gratify our senses in seeking the creature comforts and pleasures of this world. We must unclutter our lives….”
We must unclutter our lives. Keep your life simple. Where is the clutter in your life? Think about what isn’t getting done in your life, then consider what is occupying your time. Ask yourself: Could I get rid of some of the clutter to ensure the important things are getting done?
In his book Pushing to the Front, Orison Swett Marden said: “One hour a day withdrawn from frivolous pursuits and profitably employed would enable any man of ordinary capacity to master a complete science. One hour a day would in 10 years make an ignorant man a well-informed man. … An hour a day might make all the difference between bare existence and useful, happy living. An hour a day might make—nay, has made—an unknown man a famous one, a useless man a benefactor to his race. Consider, then, the mighty possibilities of two—four—yes, six hours a day that are, on average, thrown away by young men and women in the restless desire for fun and diversion!”
Then, Mr. Marden used this analogy. “On the floor of the gold-working room in the United States Mint at Philadelphia, there is a wooden latticework which is taken up when the floor is swept, and the fine particles of gold-dust, thousands of dollars’ yearly, are thus saved. So every successful man has a kind of network to catch ‘the raspings and parings of existence, those leavings of days and wee bits of hours’ which most people sweep into the waste of life. He who hoards and turns to account all odd minutes, half hours, unexpected holidays, gaps ‘between times,’ and chasms of waiting for unpunctual persons, achieves results which astonish those who have not mastered this most valuable secret.”
He is talking about treating time as the valuable commodity it is. Time is life. 1 Peter 2:9 says we are to become a peculiar people, a holy people to God, and that takes time.
Put God First
Matthew 6:33 tells us how to put God first in our lives. “[S]eek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.”
“Most of us tend to stay up too late at night and get up too late to really seek God first in the morning,” the wcg article says.
Here is where the world has it upside down: It makes all the interesting stuff happen at night: the sports, the movies, the parties and entertainment. And we have many electronics and gadgets that we can stay up using for hours after the sun sets.
One thing that winds us up is screens. The screen simulates the kind of light you experience during the daytime, and your brain thinks it is still 3:00 in the afternoon, even though the sun set four or five hours earlier, because you are staring at this bright, glowing object. Even just adjusting your exposure to screens late at night can help you sleep better. “[W]e should schedule our lives according to the daylight period as much as possible” (ibid).
This is basic wisdom people have followed for centuries. Before electricity became widespread, when the sun set, you went to bed. There wasn’t a whole lot to do. You can only sit and read by a candle for so long before your eyes start to get heavy and you doze off. What happens to you if the power goes out? You tend to go to bed. If it’s dark, you go to bed.
Benjamin Franklin said, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” This is how people have been living for most of history. “Today you are thought of as peculiar, if you go to bed early, get up early, avoid late-night activities and ‘entertainment’, emphasize family-type get-togethers and activities and put prayer and Bible study before all else in your life. But this is precisely what we must do if we’re going to finish this Work and become members of the very Family of God” (ibid).
These five points are like benchmarks for a godly, organized life.
Remember—God’s day begins at sunset. It is not that way in Satan’s world. In Genesis 1 when God was re-creating the Earth, He said there was the evening and the morning and that was the first day. The Old Testament daily sacrifices were labeled either evening or morning. The first sacrifice was done in the evening because that was the beginning of the day.
This point is brought out in Psalm 55:16-17: “As for me, I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.” As David, we must begin to organize our day when it starts—in the evening.
The article continues, “How we use our evenings will determine how the entire day will go for us. We must begin in the evening to organize our day to seek God first.”
Again, this is how to organize your life God’s way—and His day starts in the evening. This highlights the importance of bedtime.
“Normally we should get to bed reasonably early and get up early so that we can wake up alert, zestful and ready to draw near to God each morning”(ibid).
Many things in this world pressure us to go to bed late. But our ability to go to bed when we should go to bed is a habit that can develop godly character. It determines how you feel when you wake up in the morning. Most importantly, how well you sleep affects how alert you are when praying in the morning. Going to bed late starts a bad cycle.
Christ would wake early to pray every day. The only time you ever read about Christ staying up late is to pray. That is an amazing example.
We need to get most of our prayer completed in the morning before all the pressures of the day start crowding our minds. This article suggests at least 30 minutes. It also suggests doing part of your Bible study in the morning so that your mind is filled with God’s Word throughout your day.
“This will help us think God’s thoughts rather than our thoughts. But remember, the key to starting your day right is not getting to bed too late to get a good night’s sleep” (ibid).
Schedule Your Time
Make a schedule to help you plan your time.
Here is a sample schedule:
6 to 8:30 p.m.—Dinner, homework, family time
8:30 to 9:30 p.m.—Read or study; meditate and pray; prepare for bed
9:30 to 5:30 a.m.—Sleep
5:30 to 6:00 a.m.—Rise, exercise, shower, dress
6:00 to 7:30 a.m.—Prayer and Bible study
7:30 to 8 a.m.— Breakfast, commute
8 a.m. to 6 p.m.—School and work responsibilities
“Notice that the keynote is keeping your life simple and uncluttered and putting the things of God first” (ibid).
This schedule starts in the evening. It has dinner and family time, including family prayer and study. It includes 8 hours of sleep. Teens often need closer to nine hours, so you might have to go to bed earlier.
Notice the four main points in this schedule: 1) going to bed on time; 2) getting up on time; 3) praying and 4) studying are the essentials in organizing your time.
Make this your way of life. It’s also important to organize your time at school. Become an expert at making the most of your time. Come in with a plan for every day. Know what you want to accomplish, and prioritize your tasks. If you accomplish your most important tasks, then you can leave satisfied with what you were able to complete. You will never wonder where the day went.
The basic principle is: Get the most important things done first; keep it simple; work on your hardest tasks first.
Go to God for Help
Benjamin Franklin worked his whole life to organize his time, but he never fully succeeded. Organizing our time is difficult because we battle our human nature. We face many obstacles, and we will stumble. The only way we can succeed is by getting God’s help.
“But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members” (Romans 7:23).
“We can make resolutions to use our time better, but of ourselves, we cannot do it. Realize that we must go to God for help!” (ibid).
In John 15:5 Christ says, “[W]ithout me ye can do nothing.” You can’t do anything of real value without God’s help.
“Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).
“It is God’s will for us to learn to order our lives around Him, and He will provide the help we need if we go to Him for it. But we must be in earnest, and we must go all out to put forth the maximum effort on our part as well!” (ibid). We need God’s help, but we must go all out in our effort.
Mr. Flurry writes in “The Science of Spiritual Warfare”: “When you have to tackle a problem, concentrate everything you have on that problem. Bring everything possible to bear on solving it. …Do you lay siege to your big problems? A siege is a military blockade of a city or a fortified place intended to compel it to surrender. It is a persistent attack. To lay siege means to pursue diligently or persistently. How about preparing a siege against your laziness? Or your lust, or sense of inferiority, or vanity, or whatever problem you face? Lay siege on it—go right at the heart of it with everything you can muster! Destroy its will! Decimate your old man’s will to rise back up—and you will conquer it. That is how we can win battles against our serious problems” (How to Be an Overcomer).
Look at Jesus Christ’s example. He was not casually marching toward His reward. He was exerting every ounce of energy He could—to the point where He sweat blood. It was hard. He was pushed to the limits.
“For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself…. ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” (Hebrews 12:3-4).
You haven’t done that yet. You haven’t gone as far as He did.
I know of a case where someone who smoked for 30 years came into the Church, and one day God just took away his desire to smoke. However, that is uncommon. For most of us, it’s not like that. You must fight and struggle to overcome.
One minister gave a sermonette years ago where he talked about how he prayed God would help him to have the right attitude going into a basketball game. And what did God do? Two seconds into the game, He put the very thing that he was struggling with right in his face and said: You deal with this. I want you to make a different choice. I’m not going to pave the road and make everything “chocolates and roses” from this point forward. You must do something hard. That was the big lesson.
God is going to put us in situations like that to test us, and He wants us to show some backbone. He wants us to make a better choice. Maybe you struggle with laziness or a bad habit. Maybe it is the way you use the Internet. That weakness has become a habit because you’ve made the wrong choice over and over and over. Maybe it is eating too many Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Oh, I just can’t help myself when I smell that delicious Reese’s. But you can resist. But, it is difficult, so you don’t want to. I fall asleep during prayers. I can’t help it. Yes, you can, and you must! You must do something different. You must make a better choice.
God says: Look, I’m trying to bring you into My Family. I’m inviting you to marry my Son. I want you to stand up and demonstrate some character.
Mr. Armstrong said the in a June 19, 1982, sermon, “I want to arouse you to think! We’ve been just taking things for granted. We’ve been just stupefied! We haven’t been awake!… I wish some of you would show a little more energy, brethren. I wish you would get a little more earnest about this thing. Do you put earnestness in your prayers? I think most of you don’t know how to get stirred up into earnest… It’s going to take more energy, more drive, more dynamic energy than that. If I can put it in, in my 90th year as I’ve been doing … how much more could some of you do?”
At 89 years old he was looking around at all these younger people and saying: That’s all you can do, seriously? Can you imagine being shamed by an 89-year-old who is more energized in his spiritual life? He was talking about how awesome it would be to become God. This life doesn’t amount to anything in comparison to what God is offering us. We must get our minds on what really matters.
“Could you stir yourselves up a little more than you have? Brethren, I only say this because I want you in the Kingdom with me. And I am beginning to wonder how many are going to be there” (ibid).
Nobody can make it into the Kingdom of God on his own energy. However, we must show God we are passionate. He wants to see us working hard to structure our lives, to put Him first, to be organized, to use this short time He has given us to battle those forces within us that want to give into our baser desires to be lazy or to not really pour ourselves into this relationship. He wants to see you putting energy into your prayers, prioritizing your relationship with Him every day, and driving yourself to go after Him with all your heart.
God rewards us according to our works. This is a principle Christ highlighted in many of His parables. Our eternal reward hinges on what we’re doing every day! That is a phenomenal truth we must keep in our minds.
As God sees us devoting our energy to loving Him and His Family, He will amplify those efforts. He will give us the help we need. He will give us more spiritual power, which will make all our endeavors more effective.
“And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be” (Revelation 22:12). “Jesus Christ is coming quickly to reward those of us who catch the vision now—who are willing to change, discipline ourselves and endure hardness as good soldiers of His. Those of us who will set ourselves to organize our time His way, putting the things of God first in fervent prayer, diligent study and regular fasting, and who will begin to put on our spiritual armor, stop making provision for the lusts of the flesh, and stop entangling ourselves in the affairs of this life will soon receive our reward!” (How to Organize Your Life God’s Way).
Jesus Christ wants to give us a full reward—not just “scraping in” so we can be the doorkeeper in God’s Kingdom, but being right there in the headquarters temple, ministering to our Husband, and serving as His helpmate for eternity.
We are striving to have God say these words to us: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21). If we organize our time and our lives God’s way, we will enter the joy of God’s Kingdom. If we grow, produce and bear fruit now, we won’t just be in God’s Kingdom, we will qualify for the highest reward we can attain!