What is your favorite dessert? Mine is a fresh-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookie. I have noticed that when I eat that warm, fresh-from-the-oven cookie, I do not eat quickly. I take small bites. I savor that chocolate chip cookie. Why? I want to make the most of my time eating my favorite dessert. Maybe you can relate, and you also take your time savoring your favorite dessert. Admittedly, savoring our favorite desserts is a small joy we have in life, but it can teach us a larger lesson about how we live our lives. You see, we have seen throughout our Bible study this week that the life we are given here on this earth is precious and short. As a result, we must make the most of the time that God gives us here on this earth. In other words, we must savor each moment we are given.
The apostle Paul challenges us in Ephesians 5 to make the most of our lives. He wrote in this passage of Scripture, "So be careful how you live. Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days" (verses 15-16). The lives we are given are a gift. We must wisely choose not to spend our lives by haphazardly wasting the precious moments we are given. We have to make the very most out of the days we are given. After all, here on earth, the enemy is seeking to distract us and keep us from making an impact for Christ and His kingdom. One of the quickest ways we can waste our lives is by becoming distracted, not taking each moment that we are given seriously. In fact, if we are not careful, we can spend years wasting our lives.
What about you? When it comes to your own life, are you making the most of each moment you are given? Are you spending your time and ultimately your life, focusing on making Christ known, refusing to waste the precious gift of life you have been given? Every second you have is a gift. Savor every second you have been given, seeking to make an impact for Christ with every second you have been given.
Commit today to savor every second you have. What is one way you can savor the gift of time you are given today? Whatever you decide, commit to taking that step today and savor the time God has given you.
1Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. 2 Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.
3 Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people. 4 Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you. Instead, let there be thankfulness to God. 5 You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God. For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.
6 Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him. 7 Don’t participate in the things these people do. 8 For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! 9 For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.
10 Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. 11 Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them. 12 It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret. 13 But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them, 14 for the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said,
“Awake, O sleeper,
rise up from the dead,
and Christ will give you light.”
15 So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. 16 Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. 17 Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. 18 Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, 19 singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts. 20 And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
21 And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. 24 As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.
25 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her 26 to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. 27 He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 28 In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. 29 No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. 30 And we are members of his body.
31 As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” 32 This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. 33 So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
