I love the inclusion of seconds because of my penchant for paying attention to the details! Beverly thinks I am too nerdish; perhaps she is right! If the seconds had been excluded, it would not have tipped the world, and I went sliding off thereof. I have made only one purchase where the seconds indicated were 01! I have yet to hit the bull’s eye of 00. You have heard of this idiom, “The devil is in the details,” but so is God, yes? The devil loves being all about him and messing around with our seconds if we give him the time (no pun intended, cf. Jas 4:7). God wants every second in our life to count for Him which benefits us way beyond our expectations (cf. 1 Cor 2:9)!
Stating the obvious and keeping it somewhat simple here because I majored in the discipline of aftermath in school, a second or 1/60th of a minute is the
basic building block of our time. Since we have 60 minutes making up 1/24th of
our day. By including the seconds, we have 3,600 seconds within an hour time. In 12
hours, we have 43,200 seconds. Expand that to 24 hours or a day, and the
seconds double to 86,400 seconds. Without making allowances for a leap year, we
wind up with a whopping 31,536,000 seconds in a year’s time.
Thank
God that we are not so obsessed with seconds! Isn’t it easier to say when
meeting a friend that we haven’t seen in, say, 10 years, “How long has it been
since we got together last, at least 10 years?” Or, would you prefer to say, “How
long has it been since we got together last, at least 315,360,000 seconds?
Yeah, that’s pretty awkward and geeky, too! I can see myself saying that regardless of the epithets!
Part
of our discussion here orbits around that basic building block of time: 1/60th of a
minute, but this article is not suggesting to be obsessing over the seconds, but
realizing just how relevant and valuable our time here on earth is and what we
do with it. If the truth is known, we all spend an enormous number of seconds
tending to fleshly things, good or not so good! Most things are amoral; it is
what we do with it, or should I say, what it is doing to us that determines if
something becomes sinful or not in the eyes of God. We all tend to abuse
things, ugh.
I want to throw this out here quickly; you may not like it. Whatever competes with the will of God for our life is idolatry! Nothing should ever come between God and us. We have to be ever so careful about “pet” idols (material or immaterial, cf. Ex 20:3)!
Back to the seconds, it was the Lord’s half-brother, under
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who is eternal by the way, who appealed to us
to stop planning that leaves God out of the picture and to consider the
vaporous nature of life,
(Jas 4:14) whereas you do
not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor
that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
(Jas
4:15) Instead you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we shall live
and do this or that.
I remember talking to a young man, and I asked him what were his plans for the next five years, barring the rapture. He talked incessantly for the next 20 minutes of doing this and that then this and that, et cetera, et cetera. It sounded like a sensible but secular plan. So, I introduced him to Frank. “That all sounds good, but I am troubled by one thing.” He asked, “What?” And I answered kind of bluntly, “Frankly, I am troubled with it because you have not included God in your plans!” Then came the “of course” response.
Interpretation? “It is understood.” I let it go by responding, “Okay,” but what came to my mind at that moment was this,
Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks (Lk 6:45b).
I am of the opinion God was not included in this young man’s plans or that would have been articulated to me, for example, “God willing” or something to that effect. The “I” was obviously before the “He.” You want to know what is in the heart of anyone? Listen to them talk.
You
don’t have to take my assessment on this, but take it from Jesus. We may not know the
heart as Jesus does, but He was not mincing His words. It is analogous to
knowing a tree by its fruit. It is ironic that there are those today who commit
public evil in the world and at the same time defend their actions by saying, “You
don’t know my heart!” “Noble” evil is rampant in America and throughout the
world, yes?
Life
is short; that’s the word from the eternal One, the Holy Spirit; every second
counts, yes? Is God included in our plans or not? I love Jas 4:15 for that lays
down the track we are to run on during our short stay on terra firma.
Far
beyond our wildest imagination, there is nothing that gives more meaning to
life as a believer than being in the will of God. It is the only thing we can do
that transforms the ordinary and temporal nature of life’s complexities, cycles,
and curiosities into that which is extraordinary and turning the needle from
neverlasting to everlasting!
Every
second in the will of God counts for all eternity. Therefore, it is prudent for
us to invest as many seconds, our basic building block of time, of our life with
the help of the Holy Spirit in trusting in the will of God for His glory alone.
If we do that, we will manifest to a sinful and spiritually darken world a life
lived in the Light, walking in reverential trust and in the knowledge of Yahweh.
The results of second
by second or moment by moment or step by step of faith will one day be revealed
to us at the Bema seat of Christ if our life was full of sacred seconds that counted for
all eternity, an accumulated time of Christlike thinking and behavior – …not my
will but Yours be done (cf. Lk 22:42). It is never too late, my friend, to
gather seconds of our life unto Him like a precious offering.
We
have no idea of the value Yahweh places on each sacred second offered to Him
until we are out of here. Sacred seconds are considered gold, silver, and precious stones. We
know what He will do with the squandered seconds of our life, those outside His
will. Inferior seconds will be a part of that combustible material of
wood, hay, and straw: poof (cf. 1 Cor 3:12-15)!
There
is another kind of second that I want to remind us of. It is not referring to
time, but it goes along with those sacred seconds. It has to do with the
priority of our life; where do we position Christ in our everyday living? It’s
a choice of faith; one honors God the other does not. The slave tells not the
master, “Me first; You second” (cf. 1 Cor 6:19, 20)! A true and faithful slave of
God is one whose will is freely and intentionally lost in the will of the
Master out of a persuasive love (agape) for Yahweh.
Even
the transcending prime directive of all of Scripture has a God emphasis over
others even though the first and second commands of Scripture are inextricably
linked (cf. Mk 12:30-31). A word of caution will suffice here; only squandered
seconds are found in the me-first mentality. I am of the opinion that any
man/woman will do whatever he/she believes to be his/her priority. Unfortunately,
it may be misplaced, but he/she will seek to satisfy what is important to them at the moment.
Sacred
seconds are only generated by an unparalleled love (agape) for God (cf. Deut
6:5). The second command (Mk 12:31) is only made meaningful from a divine
perspective of loving God with nothing short of wholeheartedly which spills over into the lives of others. I tend to
disagree with commentators of Scripture who attempt to remind us of our duty
to God. A marvelous thing begins to happen when the grace of God turns our
submission to him from a sense of duty to willful submission out of love (agape).
I
cannot express how powerful this transition is. The mandate of the prime
directive has nothing to do with a sense of duty but an unfettered and
sacrificial love (agape) for God that puts Him first and foremost in our life over all people, places, or things (cf. Col 1:18)!
John
the Baptist, a relative of Jesus, humbly declared,
He
must increase, but I must decrease (Jn 3:30).
John, a forerunner of Christ, never sought to call attention to himself in his ministry. He was always pointing to the arrival
of Christ who only occupies the first spot, the groom (cf. Jn 3:29). John knew
His place and was content to be in the background, second, if you please; it
was, after all, the divine order. He (Jesus) must go on growing while John
continues decreasing. This is the nature of being second.
A biblical love (agape) for God voluntarily yields in submission to the majesty and will of the Almighty. Yahweh must never take a backseat to our dreams, desires, and aspirations. Recall, the words of Jesus, not My will but Yours be done? This is the inspiration and Christlike example of being in second place. Jesus submitted to the will of the Father. Had He not, there would be no future for us (cf. 1 Cor 15:17; 1 Jn 2:2; 4:10)!
There
is no royal control over those who insist on having a me-first mentality, only
a renegade at large. Our Lord and Savior must never be treated as second in
our lives for that is the algorithm of disaster, the birthplace of squandered
seconds. The poof is in the pudding!
The
heart that declares, “I am second” by the fruit of his/her thinking and doing,
produces sacred seconds. Have you not noticed that the winner for the glory of
God is always found in second place in service to Him, not the one who winds up
with the most things of the world? The real losers are those who put their will
before God with a runaway slave thinking and behavior. Following is counterintuitive
for that would demand us to be second, not the highly prized position of being first in a culture
extremely egocentric and self-entitled to the max!
To be clear, the highly prized position for a genuine believer is being second to God. It
is the sweet spot for those who are truly and deeply in love with Yahweh.
Playing second fiddle in those sacred seconds is where meaningless turns meaningful for
Jesus. I sincerely believe that this is where Jesus wants all of us to be.
He chooses the context; we simply live out the principles in faith in that context for Him whose love (agape) will never let go of us (Rom 8:38, 39)!
Now, if we do that, you want to talk about a song of praise that revels in bringing glory to our Lord and King, who just so happens to be the Lord of lords and the King of kings, and the One who is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End…who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty (Rev 1:8), our Papa (cf. Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6)? That will do it!
Think of it. When we are being energized by the Holy
Spirit of God and generating sacred seconds while living in second place, we
can’t get a more meaningful familial life with and for Yahweh than that! The question I have for us is how much of that 31 million-plus seconds a year do we want to invest in the cause of Christ in all that we think, say, or do?
Being second is a life lived where sacred seconds matter for all
eternity. That sounds to me like a winning formula straight out of God’s Book!
Isn’t it high time for you and me to start being in the winner's circle once
again for Jesus, avoiding the future poof of squandered seconds due to a sinful
desire for self to come before God, to be first before everyone and
everything? Yeah, the time is now to grab the truth by the horns for Jesus
– second/s matters! <><
