In Revelation 3:2 the message was to Sardis the dead church. It says, “Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God.” What does the Lord see in your life that needs to be strengthened or discarded or activity ceased?

Another part of redeeming the time is to rest. God created everything in six days. Then He rested. Was He tired? No. Hebrews 4:10 gives us His perspective on rest. It says, “For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.”

Slogging things out through our own strength is futile. Rehearsing things in our mind from our past is futile. Assuming things, worrying about things, jumping to conclusions, negative dialogue, and wishing things were different are all futile time wasters.

The Greek word for useless is: fruitless, empty, futile, hollow, unproductive, lacking substance, devoid of force, success, and worthless. Ugh. Lord help each of us redeem the time that we have left to live for Your glory. Colossians 3:17.

As I was memorizing Ephesians 5:16 I was thinking about time. The verse says, “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” The figurative meaning in the Greek means to rescue from loss.

Years ago my pastor wrote me a little note: seize the opportunity in the lifetime of the opportunity. Let’s think of seize as to lay hold of quickly. 

I asked myself this question: what does the Lord see as time wasters in my life? My mind goes to the hamster in the wheel. So much futile activity. John 15:16 says, “…I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain…”

C. T. Studd said, “ Only one life, ’twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” When we walk in the good works preordained for us, we will have fruit that will remain.

John 15:1-8 was written about abiding in the vine. Anything we do apart from the Lord is wasted time. Verse 5 says, “…without Me you can do nothing.” Nothing means not one thing.

Light dispels darkness. Picture a dark room. See yourself walk in and light a match. The flame from a tiny match will dispel the darkness. In my high school years, I toured a cave. At one point the guide turned out all the lights. I could not see my hand before my face.

An unbeliever lives in utter spiritual darkness. We are called by the Lord to dispel that darkness through His light in us. In Ephesians 5:12 Paul wrote about those with hidden sins. Verse 13  says, “But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light.”

The Greek for manifest is: to lay bare, reveal, uncover, make visible, make known what has been hidden or unknown, make clear. As I was memorizing that verse, my mind went back to George Whitfield. The light in him brought conviction of sin to those he met as he walked on the streets.

John 1:8 was about John the Baptist. It says, ‘He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.” So are we.

Jesus called His disciples to be light bearers. Matthew 5:16 says, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” What good works?

Ephesians 2:10 says they are the ones, “…prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Titus 3:8 says, “This is a faithful saying, and these things I want to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men.”

Remember what King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 2:11? It says, “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done…There was no profit under the sun.” Yet, as we yield to the Holy’s Spirit’s control in our lives, He will lead us specifically into the good works preprogrammed into our seed of conception.

A good work that is purposed for every believer is to be a light bearer in every aspect of our lives. Others are watching to see if what we say about Jesus is lived out in our lives.

As I was memorizing Ephesians 5:11, my mind kept thinking about fellowship. Years ago I read this definition of fellowship. Two fellows in a boat, rowing together, to reach the same shore. Fellowship is uniting in heart. It is aligning with others in purpose through building one another up. The fruit of the Spirit is evident in our words and our body language.

The verse says, “And have no fellowship with the fruitless works of darkness, but rather expose them.” The Amplified says, “…(let your lives be so in contrast as to) expose and reprove, and convict them.”

We are to be light bearers. John 3:20 says, “For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds be exposed.” His light dispels darkness.

The Lord delights in true fellowship around His light.  I love Malachi 3:16. It says, “Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard them; so a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and meditate on His name.”

Ephesians 5:8 brings us into a right perspective when we are around unbelievers. They live in, walk in, and interact through darkness. It says, “For you once were darkness…” I think of Titus 3:3. 

It says, ‘For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.” Why then are we surprised when unbelievers lash out? It is their modus operandi. They know no different.

Ephesians 2:2 says, “In which you once walked…” When we remember what we once were, we are empowered to interact through grace ~ following the Holy Spirit ~ resisting our flesh’s prompting. We are not the Lord’s light bearers when we react in our flesh.

1 John 1:6 says, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” 1 John 2:6 is our template. It says, “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.” What we are eternally is our standing which will never change.

Absolute obedience trains us to walk as Jesus walked. In John 5:19 Jesus said, “…the Son can do nothing of Himself…” John 15:5 is our key for empowerment to obey. It says, “…for without Me you can do nothing.”

I started memorizing Ephesians 5:8-21. Verse 8 says, “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” The last part is a command. What is the result? Verse 9 starts out, “(for the fruit of the Spirit…)

We bear the fruit of the Spirit when our lives are lived under the control of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:16 is another command. It says, “…Walk in the Spirit…” Commands in Scripture are there for us to obey. When we live under the control of the Holy Spirit, we will bear fruit for the Father’s glory. John 15:8.

We disobey when our flesh pulls us off track. The man of God in 1 Kings 13 was pulled off track by a deceiver. James 1:22 says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving ourselves.”

In my daily reading I came to the story of the man of God who disobeyed the Lord. It always reminds me what happens when we compromise God’s word to us. In 1 Kings 13:2 he cried out against the altar by the word of the Lord.

You can read it for yourself. The king invited him to come to his house. He would reward him. The man of God clearly stated that he could not because of what the Lord had told him. Yet, he was tricked (verse 18) and he disobeyed. It cost him his life.  

Think back to Moses when he disobeyed the Lord. It cost him from going into the promised land. 

Let’s look at Jesus as our example. Hebrews 5:8 says, “Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.” Hebrews 12:11 says, “Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Our instruction for obedience is clearly stated in His word.

I want to give you an example from one of my mentees. She dwells in her past. Read her words and feel her emotional impacts. “…having my daily crying spells and breakdowns again. For whatever reason my brain goes back to the thoughts of all the unreciprocated friendships and attempted relationships I’ve ever felt which is in turn making me feel unlovable and unlikable…”

Note how she blames it on her brain. “… I really don’t understand why my brain stores all this hurt up inside…This contributes to my self esteem issues.”

Dwelling in our hurts from the past keeps us from living vibrantly in our present. As Paul did, we exchange dwelling in the past by staying focused in our present.

Jesus is our Excellent Example. Hebrews 8:12 says, “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” That was quoted from Jeremiah 31:34. The writer of Hebrews was introducing the new covenant, because Jesus made the first one obsolete. We need to let go of our past obsolete hurts and embrace our present now.

Forgetting is choosing to not remember. Forgetfulness is an inability to remember. Huge difference. I’m still camped at Philippians 3:13 with Paul’s one thing that he does. “…forgetting those things which are behind…”

We fall into a gamut of emotions when we choose to remember something hurtful from our pasts. All memories are stored in the limbic part of our brains. I copied this from the Cleveland Clinic.

“the limbic system works together with other brain regions by processing your memory, thoughts and motivations, then tell your body how to respond.” When we choose to recall and dialogue with something traumatic from our past, our body responds as though it is happening right now. That is why Corrie froze when she was face to face with her ex-guard. She brought up the abuse in her mind and her body reacted.

It is good to be attentive to our reactions. They often reveal what is hidden that impedes our physical, emotional, and spiritual well being. When I overreact to something, I pause and ask myself, “Marilyn, what do you believe about yourself right now?”