Each New Year brings the feeling of a fresh start, a clean slate, a new beginning. Actually each day is a fresh start but it seems that we particularly get the feeling of beginning again around the first of the year.

It is a healthy thing to pause and reflect upon the past and take stock for the future; since it is common to do so now, let us give it some thought. Certainly our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.

As we stand on the threshold of a New Year, let us then resolve to make more time for the really important things of life. If we aren’t careful, our life is filled with the mundane things which tend to crowd out the things of God.

Many firms find that goals are more easily accomplished if quotas are set. They have production quotas, sales quotas, etc., and perhaps if we set a few quotas of our own we would accomplish more.

Send a short note or card each day to someone sick or alone, visit a needy soul once a week, read at least one good book every month, do our Bible readings every day. We can all think of many more to add to our list.

Now, of course, we can do these things without the aid of a formal quota but perhaps we would be more efficient in the use of our time if we rationed it out.
When it comes right down to it, we are each going to be accepted or rejected by Christ according to the way we used our time. We each have been created equal in this one respect for we all have 24 hours each day, but some place a higher value upon it than others. Our future is going to be determined by the way we spend our time.

The hardened criminal and the innocent babe are pretty much alike while asleep, so what we do while we are awake will determine the answer we shall receive from the judge of all the earth.

In the natural, we often find two children of similar ability in the same family but one studies and invests his time wisely while the other fritters his away. As adults the one becomes a famous surgeon while the other is a bum. Which would we choose to operate on us? Obviously the one who had used his time wisely.

Christ also is going to choose those who used their time wisely. It isn’t how smart we are or how much natural ability we have, it is how we use our time.

There are 525,600 minutes in a year. Let us spend them as if our very life depends upon it, because it does.