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Relationship
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The Key
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Section 1, Chapter 5
Developing Time
Management
Through Relationship With Jesus
Dale, just as there are spiritual laws which govern my spiritual universe, so there are physical laws which govern my physical universe. When you violate them, you reap what you sow. I created you to be a human being. Therefore, I don't expect you to operate outside of your human limitations. Human beings require a certain amount of sleep each night to be able to function properly. When you violate this need of your humanity, you are operating outside of your created limitations and bad side effects will result. In some cases, like in your driving, not only did you put your own life in danger but also the lives of others as well.
I then asked the Lord how much sleep I needed a night. He gave me a specific number that I have been religiously submitting to ever since.
If Jesus doesn't expect us to operate outside of our humanity, then he expects us to put in our schedules the amount of sleep necessary to be fully rested. If your schedule is so busy that you are not getting your needed sleep then you are outside of Jesus’ will for your life and definitely busier than He wants you to be. It is okay to be human. Therefore, before scheduling study time and your other activities (besides first Daily Feeding on Jesus, ministry involvement, and aerobic exercise) you need to first also put down your necessary required sleep to be fully rested each day to meet the demands of your daily schedule.
Meals: Before I was saved I was studying to be a priest. I was very religious and very much an ascetic. An ascetic is someone who punishes his body because he thinks punishing his body is somehow spiritual and will gain him his salvation. One day I found out that I was saved through faith in Jesus' blood alone, that there was nothing I could add to what He had already done on the cross except rest in that completed work by faith (Gal 2:16). But because I had been an ascetic for so long, even after I was saved for a time, by habit, I carried on my ascetic practices. One of these practices involved not eating more than one meal a day, and fasting one or two complete days a week.
At the same time I was carrying on this practice and habit, I found myself depressed most of the time. One day in conversation with a friend named Gene Wilson, he made a comment to me that the only time he got depressed was when he did not eat regularly. The Holy Spirit went right through me with that statement, and I decided from that day on that I would eat three meals a day except for special times that Jesus led me into a fast for a purpose. The end result was I was no longer depressed. I only get depressed now when there is a specific reason for it, but not as a daily lifestyle. Therefore, before you schedule anything else, make sure you put in your schedule ample time for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It is okay to eat. Eating, when done properly, is spiritual.
Play: By nature I am a workaholic. Before I was a Christian, I was a workaholic; and after I was saved, I simply passed my zeal into Christian service. Several years ago I was involved in ministries and Bible studies every day of the week. One Sunday my Pastor gave a very good motivational message about the need of Christians to do more for the Lord. Of course, he was talking to those Christians very reluctant to do anything outside of their own desires with their time. But being the sensitive workaholic I was, I received this for myself and went forward for prayer. As I was striving (and that was exactly what I was doing) in prayer, the Pastor walked over to pray with me. As he was praying for me he received a word of knowledge from the Lord for me and so he gave it to me: Dale, my instruction to you is to take one night a week and go bowling. I thought at first my Pastor did not understand why I had come forward, but he had discerned in His spirit that more involvement in ministry was not what I needed. My need was the opposite: a need to take some time for relaxation. Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30,
"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light."
Therefore, before you put down any of your other responsibilities, along with all that has already been mentioned, you need to first put down time for play. You need time for relaxation to build up your strength again for the rest of the weekly schedule you have to face. You will need to pray and ask Jesus how much time a week for you individually this should involve.
Before you schedule anything else, schedule time for quiet time, ministry involvement (if you are in this school of Evangelism you already know when this is), aerobic exercise, sleep, meals, and play. When you have done this your schedule will look something like this link.
These are the permanent life time aspects of your schedule. They will never stop being a part of your weekly schedule. The time in your schedule you have left over is what you have to work with the rest of the week to accomplish your other God given goals which are temporary and changing as they are individually completed.
The eighth step in the creating of your weekly schedule is to count up the left over hours after doing all the above steps. See if this amount of hours matches the left over hours required for your other responsibilities of the week calculated. If it does not then revise the required hours for each activity to match the hours available.
If in revising time for each activity your left over time is not adequate to meet all of the present listed activities, then you are taking on more than Jesus presently expects of you to accomplish. Remember, Jesus does not expect nor want you operating outside your humanity. Pray and ask Jesus to show you presently what needs to be dropped or set aside for a future time so your present available time is adequate for the goals He presently wants you to accomplish. Be assured, this will not include Daily Feeding on Jesus, ministry involvement, aerobics, sleep, meals, and play. These never change.
Once that is accomplished, the ninth step is to then pray and ask Jesus to show you how best to put these left over activities on the schedule and then begin by faith putting them on the schedule.
Tenth, once you have everything on the schedule, ask Jesus to show you if there is anything you might have forgotten to put on the schedule. If there is, make the necessary adjustment in your schedule to fit it in. At this point your schedule should be complete. It should look something like this link.
Realize that the first few weeks you may have to make some minor adjustments as you recognize some activities need more time than originally discerned and some less. I usually make two to three adjustments before I have a final stable schedule.
Finally, by faith, acknowledge Jesus in your weekly schedule, confess your inability to live it out in your own strength, and claim Jesus' promise in Proverbs 3:6: "In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight."
WARNING: Your plan of time management, designed through the leading of the Holy Spirit will not work unless you are willing to die to self. Jesus said in the Gospel of John 12:24-25,
"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his soul loses it; and he who hates his soul in this world shall keep it to life eternal."
Your soul is what you become and manifest through your physical body in personality, vocation, and life-style: 1) as a result of your heart response to what you have learned through your mind, body, spirit, conscience, and emotions; and 2) as a result of those abilities and talents God has chosen to give you individually (Prov 6:32, Matt 16:24-26, Ps 106:13-15).
Jesus has a plan for your life. Specifically, a plan for your soul development. The only way that His plan for your soul development can come about is through the yielding of all your personal rights. Especially is this true in the areas of vocation, marriage, peace with relatives, the right of many time-consuming friendships unless ordered of the Lord for a purpose, and use of all time during the week (Rom 12:18, Prov 18:24).
Jesus said in Luke 14:33, "So therefore, no one of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions." Giving up our rights to fulfill our desires does not mean necessarily that God will not grant these desires to be fulfilled, but only that we release the right to do anything to bring about their fulfillment in ourselves. The disciple of Jesus relies on Jesus and Jesus alone for all his needs and for the fulfillment of any of his desires. Jesus said in John 10:10, "The thief comes only to steal, kill and to destroy; but I came that you might have life and might have it abundantly." Jesus loves us and wants the best for us and since He created us, only He knows best how to manage our lives and when is the best time that our desires should be fulfilled. David the Psalmist said in Psalm 31:14-15, "But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord, I say, ‘You are my God. My times are in Your hand.’" If one does not completely yield his rights to Jesus, Jesus will not be able to develop that soul-life in that person, and that person will not be able to submit to the weekly schedule Jesus has given him. You must make a willful choice and say, Jesus I believe that you love me, not because I necessarily feel that love or because my circumstances necessarily provide my senses with the evidence of that love; but I choose to believe that you love me because Your Word declares you do (Jer 31:3); and since Your Word is true I choose to trust You with every detail of my life and to fulfill my desires when it is best for Your kingdom (Matt 6:33) and when I can enjoy it the most (Heb 1:9, Ps 16:11).
If a person, who desires to be a disciple of Jesus and let Him be Lord over his time during the week, does not take this step, he will be tossed back and forth like a ping-pong ball because Satan will ever throw doubts into his mind and will lead him away from the purpose of God's kingdom to try and fulfill the desires of his flesh in his own strength. Satan will try to get him to act out of fear.
Continued on Page
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