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1 Corinthians 9:11
"If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we should reap material things from you?"

Relationship With Jesus
The Key To Effective Ministry

Section 1, Chapter 5

Developing Time Management
Through Relationship With Jesus

Page 4, Back to page 1, 2, 3

Fear is a questioning of God's love. What happens when we allow fear to be a motivating factor in our decision making? A questioning of God's love, if accepted, will then lead to unbelief.

Unbelief is refusing to trust God and believe His love will lead you to the paths of righteousness and the fulfillment of your desires when it will best benefit His kingdom and when you will best be able to enjoy it (2 Chron 20:20). Once Unbelief enters your heart, it then leads to pride.

Pride is taking self-initiative to do something about one's problems, needs or frustrations, rather than waiting for Jesus' initiative through the Holy Spirit. It centers in the word I (See Romans 7; Ps 27:14, 138:8; Is 41:10). When a person is walking in pride he cannot resist lust.

Lust is since, now, one does not believe that Jesus loves them enough to give them the right answer concerning their problems, needs, and frustrations when the time is right and it is best, it leads to the logical conclusion that He will also not fulfill one's desires either when it is the right time and best. The end result is now an angry attempt to fulfill one's lust and desires also. Paul states in Romans 1:28-32 about a person who stops acknowledging Jesus in their thoughts and ways and submitting to His counsel concerning those thoughts and ways,

"And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanders, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them."

Whenever you question Jesus' love and allow fear to take control of you, the spiritual pattern described above will always result. It is an absolute spiritual law. Of course confession of known sin and repenting to only act and speak out of Jesus' initiative will as quickly stop the pattern.

Once the choice is made to trust in Jesus to fulfill our desires, we are then free to serve Him with a whole heart; then when the enemy does come and attack, as he surely will, we can then say with our lips, I don't care what is going through my head I choose to believe what the Bible says and that is that God loves me and will accomplish what concerns me in His time (Jer 31:3, Psalm 138:8).

Jesus says in John 12:26 that where He is, there shall His servant also be. "If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall my servant also be; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him." Because you have acknowledged Jesus in your schedule and life, if you want to be where Jesus is in your life, He will be where you are supposed to be in your life and in your use of time.

According to Galatians 5:22-23 the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, and peace. Therefore, Jesus is telling you that not only will He be present in your scheduled activities; but also when you obey Him in these committed times, you will be practicing a principle of what it means to walk in the Spirit and experience the fruit of the Spirit of love, joy, and peace.

Once I have committed by schedule to Jesus, if in my schedule I have down at the moment play, but try to study, I find it unfruitful. I cannot get anything accomplished. This is because Jesus wants me to play now. But if I am at a study time in my schedule, I find that as I sit down to study, I know exactly what to do, Jesus' peace and joy is with me, and my study time in itself is a joy and fruitful.

If you try to do more than Jesus wants you to do in your weekly schedule, you will find a lack of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. This happened to me one semester while in college. Jesus had told me specifically not to take more than 12 1/2 credits a semester because I was working 25 hours a week. To take more than this would result in a lack of quality study time in each of the classes I was taking. This one semester I got anxious, I wanted to get through my degree; so at the beginning of the semester, without the Lord's permission, I decided to add another 3 credits to see if I could handle it. In the second week of school I was tense, irritable, without the fruit of the Spirit of love, joy, and peace. As a result, one day as I was walking over to the Aerobics center at the University, I prayed: Jesus, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, and peace. I don't have any. What is wrong in my walk with you? About a half-hour later while doing my fifty push-ups, the Lord brought to my mind Psalm 127:2: "It is vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors; for He gives to His beloved even in his sleep." Then the Lord said to me, Your schedule is to heavy. Drop one of your courses. I did, made the necessary adjustments in my schedule, and the love, joy and peace of the Holy Spirit returned. Jesus knows what he is doing with our lives. Submit to His will in the use of your time during the week and the speed of His establishing your life. If you compromise and take your life into your own hands, you will produce flesh: wood, hay, and straw; not Spirit: silver, gold, and precious stones (1 Cor 3:10-15). You also will destroy your soul-life and be a stumbling block to Jesus’ Lordship over other’s lives because your life will always be rubbing against the Holy Spirit in other’s lives because you will be out of Jesus' Lordship over your life. "There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." (Prov 14:12).

How does keeping a schedule keep the devil from defeating you in the pursuit of your goals and keep you from failing? First, because you are faithful to your schedule and are not allowing the distractions of Satan to draw you away from your commitment to that schedule, you end up succeeding and accomplishing what you have set forth to do. By applying these principles I have managed in my short life to complete three college degrees and the Layman Evangelism Ministry Book Series listed on the following order form this link and this website. By applying these principles, I succeeded in writing for other's blessing this chapter on time management and this textbook on Evangelism. At this writing, through present time management, I find the time to go out four times a week and share the Gospel at two colleges and two indoor malls in the town I am living in.

Second, it keeps Satan from being able to attack you by freeing you of all worry. If Satan comes along and says, Hey! When are you going to get that paper done, and your laundry? And what about your family and wife? You need to be spending time with them! You can respond: Be gone Satan! All of these things are already planned in my weekly schedule, so they are already taken care of. Thus, there is no distractions in your studies, work and play, and thus your study, work and play time is quality time. It takes you less time to get the same amount of material done in your work and studies since all the distractions of worry are gone.

Third, because you have planned in your schedule play and miscellaneous times, you have something to look forward to and, as a result, you can cope better with your pressures of studies and work.

Fourth, you will be healthy because you are eating right, sleeping right, and getting sufficient exercise on a regular basis.

Fifth, you will accomplish ten times more in a week because of adherence to the schedule.

"All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." (Heb 12:11, Matt 25:14-30).

Back to page 1, 2, 3; Chapter 6
Bibliography & Notes
Section 1 Chapters

Related Topic:  The Nature of the Flesh

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