Pray

Read: Ecc 3:1-8.

Meditation

There is a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted. There will be seasons of hard work in life. Planting is by definition a time when you invest rather than gain. You work hard, and you give of your resources. This runs counter to the right now mindset of many Australians, who would rather spend in advance than work hard at the grind-stone and save. Yet there will be seasons of hard work, and we must embrace those seasons. So work hard at your jobs, work hard at your relationships, work hard in your homes and in raising your children. Work hard at your marriage and invest in it. Even reaping itself is hard work, but the day will come when we will reap a mighty harvest. There will be harvests in this life, but the greatest harvest of all comes in eternity. Honouring Christ in this life will mean working hard.

There is a time to kill. This probably jars a little against modern western ears, and the reason for this is that today sin has completely twisted our minds. We refuse to kill murderers, for example, and yet we defend to the hilt the right to slay unborn innocents. The death penalty is seen as abominable, but abortion clinics are treated as practically a civil right. Yet God, in his wisdom, declares clearly that there is a time to kill. We must look to God’s Word to learn the standard of right and wrong. In Gen 9:6 we read, Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. The reason our lives are precious is because they image God, and modern society has almost completely lost this insight. There is, in fact, a time to kill. When somebody murders somebody else, they deserve to die, because in murdering another person they have committed one of the purest acts of hatred against God possible. To murder is to show oneself to be worthy of death. There is a time to kill. And beyond this, it is always a good time to be killing sin. There is a time to kill, and so we must be skilled in the art of spiritual warfare. We must take up the sword of the Spirit each and every day. We must wage war against, and kill, our sinful nature every day.

There is a time to heal. Has it ever occurred to you that if you are sick, then by definition, in God’s good and perfect plan, it is not a time to heal, because you are always in exactly the season of life that God wants you to be in. This does not mean do not seek healing, and it does not mean do not ask for it in prayer. After all, there is a time to heal. But since there is a time to heal, we must also accept the fact that there is a time to be sick or injured. Think about that, and it will help you live patiently through sickness.

There is a time to break down, and a time to build up. In a fallen world, sometimes a thing may be so thoroughly corrupted by sin that all that can be done with it is to break it down and destroy it. Destroying things is a sad but necessary part of life in a sinful world. Conversely, there is also a call upon our lives to be building up in Christ: building up one another in Christ, building up our families in Christ, building a business, and building an education. There is a time to build. As we saw last week, we are called to be constructive with the gifts and opportunities that God gives us. SDG.

Prayer of Confession & Consecration

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