Moving Forward: God's Word Propelling His People

Passage: Ecclesiastes 9:11

“I retuned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, neither is bread to the wise nor riches to men of intelligence and understanding nor favor to men of skill, but time and chance happen to them all.”

Message: Time & Opportunity

The passage confirms that everyone will encounter opportunities for increase. Not everyone, however, will maximize the potential of those opportunities. Such opportunities usually come in the form of instructions, and your ability to carry it out in the time it was presented would cause access to increase. The fact that there's the possibility of something you could've accomplished that would've been a blessing if you used your time wisely, confirms this truth.

The enemy doesn't want us to experience the blessings of God, so he seeks to attack our time by distracting our focus. If he can cause you to be preoccupied with what seems right rather than what is right, then he could take you away from accessing the blessing that comes with the discipline and obedience of doing things when they're presented. While making you feel at ease with the knowledge of you having the intention to carry out that instruction.

If your bank account goes in the negative, for example, if you don't clear it the same day you would be charged a late fee. Having the intention to clear it without doing it that day doesn't mean the bank would pardon you. Moreover, the longer you wait, the negative balance increases, and for your account to be in good standing you'll have to pay the cost. Then it ends up costing you more than was required if you acted on it in the beginning. This is what happens if you push back God's instructions based on good intentions, because when you finally get to it, your time was the payment, causing things that should've been released upon your life to be withheld.

This is not a message to stir up feelings of regret, but to waken us up to the reality of our actions, that we may eliminate any excuses that causes procrastination and move forward with making the best use of our time. Ephesians 5:15-16 states, “Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity.”