Wasting Valuable Time

Wasting things in this life, is something that we all have catered to and subscribed to on many occasions.  The thing of which we have so foolishly wasted is the time we have been given to live here on the earth.  I say foolishly wasted because, we in our blindness have failed to see the value of the time we have been given to live.

When we fail to see the value of a thing, we waste that thing as though it is nothing or we think we have plenty of it.  So many of us will wish with cries and tears, that we can get some of our time back, when we stand before the Lord.  But as the word of God teaches, when night cometh, no man can work.  We must value our time with godly living while it is the day.  

We have no time, to waste valuable time.

Transcript

Pastor Rickey D. Dixon 0:02

He has blessed us with another day. Oh, Saint He said, another day's journey. And I'm so glad. I am truly glad this day and every day to be striving to serve the Lord. I love serving the Lord. I don't want to live no other life. This is the life that I desire to live for the Lord. And I want to live it truthfully. I want to live it according to the word of God. I want to live it as his word says for us to live it. For God is God. And there is no other God but God. There's no other God but God. For He is the God of our salvation. We owe Him to serve Him in spirit and in truth. And we must find ourselves serving Him. As the Lord knows He deserved to be served. But this morning we're so glad to have you here on this third Sunday of February, the year of our Lord, 2025. I want to deal with a subject matter this morning concerning our present-day situation and what we are supposed. Let's get it in our heads. We are not in this world to stay in this world. There's something after this. We all know this. We all know Jesus on his way back. We all know that he, well, we should. I hope we all know that he is soon to come. Because he said he would. And today I want to focus on well, the word of God is gonna have us focus on. Not so much that he coming back, but that we what is our stance? What is our position? What are we supposed to be doing as far as preparation for his return? Or if we are even doing anything to prepare ourselves for his turn, what are we doing each and every day to get be ready? To get ready. What have we done to get ready? And I and I want us to we got to stop assuming that just because we feel we're doing this and doing that, that that's enough, that we're gonna get in automatically. We got to stop lying ourselves to assume that God is just set gonna accept how we live. And if we are not ready, we ain't gonna make it easy. One thing, this is what let me let me let me lay a foundation here. One thing is very evident, and today's message, and I might get through, I might not, it's turned to a two-part series, it so be it. But one thing is very evident in the lives of mankind in this generation that we live in, and it is just as true, and or was just as true in the generation that has come along before us. It's still true today, what I'm about to say, and that and and that is this. We all have been known to waste the precious gift God has given all of us that precious gift called time. We all have been known to waste time from generation to generation. Mankind has been wasting time, and we are still wasting time today. What I'm talking about time wasted, I ain't talking about time, mankind time, I'm talking about the time God has given us that we should be using to get ourselves ready to leave them. How much time have we wasted? And even on this week, let's just take this week, for instance. Who knows just how much time we have wasted on nonsense and foolishness and things that ain't had nothing to do with God. Talking about, I can't speak for the world, I can't speak for nobody else, but there is one thing that I have that I am becoming more and more well, and that is this. The time that the Lord God has given us is to be lived wisely and righteously before Him. Now we don't come to the word Lord, but I'm telling you that's what it that's what our time should be used at. And the last time it ain't it ain't gonna be till our eyes come open to ourselves and to life and to what's really going on in the true reality of things, that we are here to serve the Lord, and we are here to give our time dedicated to doing his will, not our will, but because we have free will, we have taken that free will to do a lot of wasting of the time God has given us. And now look at look at the clock now. 20 years went by, 30 years I went by, 50 years went by. And how much of that has been given to God? How much of that has been wasted? He has never see, God has never meant for us to waste our time as if we think we already have timeless eternal life. No, we ain't got no time for eternal life yet. One thing about time, once you have wasted it, you can't get it back. You can't go back and get tomorrow. I mean yesterday, excuse me. You can't go back and get them last five years back, them last 30 years back. You can't go back and get that. It's gone. Whether you lived it positively or negatively, it's now considered to be in the past, gone. See now this morning, this morning, we will address the knowledge of this precious commodity of time given unto us, and we will learn just how valuable every minute is to us living in these last days, and we will learn how little of it is left for us all. So many of us don't realize how little time we got left, but we need to be aware of this. You ain't got as many days as you once as you had when you first started out the gate, since you've been born. A lot of years is behind us, y'all. But I ain't trying to put a damp on life, but I got to I gotta make us aware because some of us ain't gonna do nothing, some of us ain't gonna move until we be shaken up, some of us not gonna attempt to put any effort toward our own eternal life until something shakes us up, and I gotta do some shaking this moment. But as always, when it comes to the things of God, there is hope. Even though we may have wasted a lot of time, there is still hope. Even though we have not been preparing ourselves for God for the Lord Jesus' return, there is still hope. Because the clock ain't stopped ticking yet. Now, understand this. This hope that I'm about to share with you, it comes with spiritual conditions of which we must follow carefully and precisely. These conditions we will see will both start with and end with, hallelujah, Jesus. We got to put this on today's message. The wardrobe of the righteous. We got to put we got to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, we got to wear him as a garment every day. The wardrobe of the righteous. Because as for me, in my life, I know that I have wasted valuable time in my foolish years. I know looking back on my life, all this stuff I did, I wasted a lot of valuable time foolishly. So I don't mind laying because I need that what time I got left to get myself together. See, I need this granted time we have left to get myself fully clothed in Jesus with haste with it in a hurry. And we all gonna take this this stance on getting in the hurry. Tomorrow ain't promised. The Lord appeared unto him and told him, Call him thy food. This night, thy soul is required of thee. Now, what would you do when the Lord appeared to you and said that to you before this evening, and he tell you this night, this night of February the 16th, thy soul is required of thee. But you didn't already say spoke what you're talking about. You're gonna do tomorrow, the next day, and the rest of this week. No, that's why you stick with the book. You know what the Bible tells us say? You better say, if the law is will he taught the church, and here in my particular foundation scripture, he was telling it to the church in Rome in the book of Romans. He was telling it, he taught it that Jesus was gonna return, and he also taught along his other missionary journeys while in the ministry. This is why we are, and why as the children of God, we must always be spiritually ready, casting off all the works of darkness and sin. Oh, don't think you can't be spiritually ready. God would not require this of us if it were not possible. But here's the key. I told you about them conditions that we got to follow. It must be done through Christ. We must be wearing Jesus in this world. In this world, without Jesus in your life, without Jesus upon his spirit upon your life, you cannot make it. In this world, living for the Lord without Jesus, you cannot make it to heaven. And think you're gonna claim eternal life if he who is eternal is not upon your life. For he is the wardrobe of the righteous, and if you ain't got your wardrobe on, if you don't, if you are not clothed in Christ and not covered in Jesus, how do you think you are supposed to make it? Why do you think the devil keeps us so distracted? Why do you think the devil keeps us so preoccupied? Why do you think our minds are always over yonder? Why do you think our hearts are always in left field to cause us to continue to keep wasting time in areas of our spiritual life that don't even matter? If the devil can keep us engaged in things that don't even matter, he knows the clock is ticking. And he knows if we don't come to ourselves, like the prodigal son did, he come to his self and realized he's supposed to be in his father's house. If we don't come to ourselves, our time would have been wasted, and our souls will be lost. Because we failed to do what the word of God has told us to do by putting on Jesus. Let me lay the foundation in the book of Romans, chapter 13, four verses as our foundational scripture for today's message, the wardrobe of the righteous. Simply put, putting on Jesus. If you don't know the time, you better know it. That now, he Paul said that knowing the time, that now it is high time. Come on now. We in we in high time mode. The time is up got high. That means we're a lot of time. It's behind us now, it's getting close. He said that now it is high time to do what, Paul? To wake up, to awake out of sleep. And this sleep ain't talking about sleeping in the bed. This talking about sleep, sleeping round here, uh, the way you can't live in your life as though you were in a slumber, unconcerned, oblivious, mindless to what's going on in the spiritual realm. It's time to wake up out to sleep now, because we're in high time. And you better know this. See, so you're right. People think that ignoring a thing, they think as long as I ignore it, that it'll go away. Listen, you can't ignore this here. You well, you can if you want to. You do you. Try to ignore what we're supposed to be doing, that's not gonna make it go away. We got to accept the fact that this is the word of God and the Lord's word, he means just what he said. If he says high time, it's time to wake up, it's time to wake up. That's the warning. What I talked to the other day said, and brought they brought the fact, warning always comes before destruction. You better listen to the warnings. The word of God has been warning us all our life. It's high time to wake up out of sleep. What say, Paul? For now, see, this is why you this is why we need to be waking up out of our sleep. Our slumber, walk around here, uh K Sarah Sarah, tie in the sky. This is why we need to wake up. Wow, Paul, for now is our salvation. Listen at that, nearer than when we believe. Things are a lot closer than we think, y'all. Our salvation is more nearer than we believe. Oh, I ain't gonna have my day. I got plenty of time. Lord ain't coming right now. It might be another hundred years before the Lord comes back. All right, keep thinking that. Our salvation, I'm gonna see you going what you go on. I'm gonna go on the word. The word of God just told me our salvation is nearer than when we believe. When you first thought it's close. How much more does God got to give us before we before we engage ourselves in the preparation that we need to be engaged in? He ain't through. Keep talking about this. He said, the night is false men. Look at the phrases he's using. High time to wake up out of our sleep. Salvation is nearer than we believe. The night is false men. Look at these the perlitive that he uses. The night is false men, the day is at hand. All this is one to let you know something's close. Let us talk about us. All right now, you think you're in the clear as you is you on this earth and you allow that. This is in you, you you we all included in the us. Let us therefore cast out that means. To get rid of some things, better get rid of that. That foolishness you're doing, that ugliness in your life, that sin that you've been doing in your life, that disobedience you've been doing in your life, the way you've been treating people in your life, it's time to cast off. Listen at that. And all these things are the works of darkness. It's time to get rid of them. Because you cannot put Jesus on. Or what Paul called in the next line, he said, and then in the next part of that verse, and let us put on the armor of life. You cannot wear light and darkness at the same time. Oh, I know I got people out there with argue facts. They think they can live saved or call themselves saved, but live like they want to live each and every day. Live in the darkness, but my mouth says I got light in my life. Then use the line wonder. And you're lying to yourself. You deceiving yourself if you think like that. You got to cast off the works of darkness. And you know how see how Paul put that? He first said you cast off the works of darkness before he said, Let us put on the armor of life. You got to take that off first. You can't get up in the morning getting dressed, and you still got your night clothes on. Come on now. Oh, you can, but hey, it's gonna look foolish. But spiritually, you cannot put on the armor of life, a clothing of life, which is the wardrobe of the righteous, which is putting on Jesus, and you still got all that darkness in your life. I don't care how much you get up in the morning and say with your mouth, you say. That don't mean your words don't mean nothing. But are you living this? Come on, let me get my foundation because I'm well, I know I ain't gonna get through. It's gonna be a part two. Go on, Paul goes on to say in the book of Romans 13. Now I'm at verse 13. He said, Let us this the first, here's the thing we got to do. Okay, let's say, okay, Pastor Dixon, I get it. I see where you're going with this. Tell me what I must do to get myself together. Tell me what I must do to put on the water right now. Tell me what I gotta do to put Jesus on because I know I ain't been wearing Jesus every day. Well, I'm gonna let the word take. Pastor Dixon is gonna tell you what the word is telling you. Because I'm gonna stick with the word. My opinion and my voice are gonna be what the book says. The first thing he says is in verse 30, he said, Let us walk honestly. First thing we gotta do is get honest with ourselves. Let's get honest. Let's go and get honest now. Tell the truth. You can't tell me that you have been walking and living your life, and all that people in your life around you that you associated with, that's in your world, have seen Jesus each and every day on you. That they have seen you wearing Jesus each and every day of your life. Let's be honest. The book said, let's be honest. That also means you got to live honestly. Don't just say you're an honest person. Show you an honest person by living an honest life, an honest spiritual life before God. Let us walk honestly as in the day. Not in rioting and drunkenness, that's in living like the world. That's what it's talking about, basically. Living like the world. You ain't living an honest life before God, your honest spiritual life before God, living like the world and acting like the world, talking like the world, showing out like the world. He said, not in rioting, drunkenness, and that drunkenness ain't always reluctant. That's just drunkenness and sin. Drunk with yourself and self-righteousness and high-mindedness, not in chambering and one tongue, living hoish, sex everywhere you go within and everybody, living like the world. Well, it's consensual, Pastor Disson. Okay, I'll tell you what. Tell that to the devil when y'all together in hell that you were doing it consensual. See if you're gonna be burning consensually, not in chambering and wanting. It's and this, and that's an area right there. I don't have time to go into it. Sex has become rampart, wickedness, sexual immortality is have run, it's an epidemic in this world, and that is what's keeping up. A lot of people wasting time, and the very reason they can't put on Jesus, because so much of this is in their life, not in strife and in the we got time for all that mess and that foolishness, having strife. Let me live with that strife though. I gotta deal with that strife a little bit. Let me deal with strife, always in an argumentative state, contentious, always ready to fly off the hammer, always ready. Got your claws out, always ready to give somebody two percent of your brain, and you need it. Let them know how you see things. You offended me. Hallelujah. I feel I ain't gonna let you get away with that. Hallelujah. Let me tell you something. Let me let me tell y'all something. Let me decide about him then. Thank you, hold on. About when we put on Jesus and wearing the wardrobe of the righteous. Putting on Jesus, who should be our our wardrobe, our dress, our garment. It's not like putting on the clothes we wear physically. Putting on Jesus, who is our garment, causes us to become like him, in our mannerism, in our thinking, in the way we carry ourselves. I remember on yesterday I was on the phone with someone, and I don't know how the conversation got to this area, and and how but they brought up how certain things bother them that people do, and if somebody was to do this, I do this, and I and and I say I said to them what they was talking about, particularly, I said that kind of stuff don't it wouldn't bother me. It wouldn't offend me. If somebody gave you a good cuss and I it wouldn't bother you, I said, No, it wouldn't bother me. Well, I couldn't sit there, I ain't gonna sit there and let nobody cuss me out like that. You tell me I wouldn't bother you, no, it wouldn't bother me. I said, even if somebody slapped my faith, it wouldn't bother me. I'm talking spiritually, y'all. I ain't saying I would like none of that. I'm saying it wouldn't bother me spiritually, to the point that I would be moved to retaliate. You ain't got to believe what I say. I'm just saying, I know, I know what God done brought me to because they kept saying, Well, I ain't there yet. I ain't I'm I'm getting there, but I ain't all that. Well, why aren't you there? If you've been walking with the Lord for this period of time, what have you been doing with your time? Because there should be signs that some parts of us have already changed to be like Jesus. Did they not call Jesus out of his name? Did they not spit in his faith? Did they not slap him? Did they not snatch the half out of his beard, out of his face? Where did he, where in the word of God did he let that bother him to the point that he retaliated or got on their level? But I ain't gonna let nobody holler at me and I said, why not? If that is what he requires of you for his glory. Now I'm not trying to sit here and tell nobody that I'm on another level different to somebody else. That's not what my point is. I'm telling you that God has brought me to a certain point in him through Christ after putting on Jesus that certain things just simply don't bother me no more. And I'm not telling you for you to believe this. I'm telling you this because it's the truth. And I let you do with the truth what you will with the truth. But I'm here to tell you, I'm not satisfied because I still know that God got a long way, and um, some more journey is yet left for me on this journey, on this path of righteousness. But there are certain things about our own man that should be behind us. We should not still be so easily offended by certain things. If we were putting on Christ and if we are wearing the wardrobe of the righteous, because God gives you a resistance around your heart, a resistance around your mind from the offenses that will come from other people of mankind that they will try to use to throw you off your game, that they will try to use to offend you. God has given us the ability to be strong if we want to be against certain things. Them just words. Oh, but I can't do it. They just can't tempt him. Uh-uh, uh-uh. All they are really saying is they are not where God wants them to be. Okay, and if he was to come today and you are right there, how do you think and realize you're gonna make it? When you have not passed the elementary stages of our spiritual development, you have not passed the preschool of our spiritual education that should have been accomplished by now, and we should very well be on our way to high school spiritually in certain areas of our lives. No, I mean that that stuff would not, that stuff don't bother me no more. Uh because see, I ain't got time to let those things that the devil do through other people to distract me any longer. Because that's all it really is to distract you and to keep you in a state of the old man, which we should have put off by now, and be wearing the wardrobe of the righteous. We should have put off Jesus by now. And if we have put on Jesus by now, it would show that we have put on Jesus. The last verse, verse 14, in our foundation, Romans 13 and 14. Here's where our message, the roots and foundation of our message is coming from this morning. Paul said, but put ye on, listen at that, put him on, put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. Put any way you're gonna make it, ain't the way you're gonna put on, be honest. Ain't no way you're gonna stop living like the world. Ain't no way you're gonna have stop your heart from getting full of strife and contention and envy if you don't put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Such a simple solution in putting on Jesus, but for some people, that's the hardest step to make. That's the hardest decision to make to put on Jesus. Because if I put on Jesus, I can't enjoy this no more. If I start doing what Jesus wants me to do, I can't be myself. Well, thank God. That's the whole point. He's trying to get us to stop being ourselves. He's trying to get us to stop being like the old man. Because our ways is sending us to hell. Yet thank God He won't want you to be like you used to be no more. He wants you to be like Jesus. You're not gonna make it to heaven being like who you are right now. None of us gonna make it to heaven being who we are right now, or the way we are in the world. The identity we have. Remember the mother message I didn't think we go about our identity. Your identity gotta change. Your ways gotta change. And I'm here to guarantee, I guarantee this here. They will change if you put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Like Paul is telling us right there. He said, But put on ye the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provisions for the flesh. We have made too many provisions for the flesh. What are they talking about? We have provided too many ways for the flesh to get what it wants. We have provided too many ways for the flesh to act out its enjoyment, its pleasures, its desires. But we got to stop making provisions, stop providing for the flesh what he wants. And that flesh, that's you. Stop going where you don't need to go, stop doing what you don't need to be doing, stop acting like you don't need to be acting, stop making provisions for the flesh. Because as long as we continue to make the provisions of the flesh and we and not put on the Lord Jesus, we're gonna always find ourselves fulfilling the lust thereof. And as long as we fulfill the lust of the flesh, we cannot dress ourselves out by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. I told you all about those conditions. These conditions are predicated on us doing what the words say do. Doing what the word said to do, and stop doing what the word said not to do. And don't tell me you can't do it, but you gotta have a mind to do it. That's our foundation. See, but let me let me let me let me. That was Paul. Let me he's a man of God, but let me say something that Jesus said. Let me give you how Jesus said it in one of his parables. Jesus said it like this, and in the parable, I know a lot of y'all probably ain't read it. And one of his parable uh commentators call the parable of the watching servant, the servant that was watching, waiting for his master to get back. If you don't want to read it, read in the book of Luke. Just read the Luke the 12th chapter. But I'm gonna give you just a little bit of what it's saying to tie in what I just told you, what Paul just said. This is what Jesus said. He said, Let your loins be girded. I'm in Luke 12. I'm just 35 and 36, but read read the whole story when you get chance. He said, Let your loins be girded about. That means be ready. That was a term they used back then when they got their stuff in ready mode. They'll gird their loans about and tie yourself up and ready to move. Let your loins be girded about and your light burning. Come on now. When the last time you saw your light burning, your spiritual light in your life? When the last time you saw the anointing burning in your life, don't answer, but just answer to yourself. When the last time you felt the anointing of God as a sign of the light, his anointing light, the Holy Ghost burning in your life. See, waiting on Jesus don't mean you're sitting like you wait in a chair for somebody to pull up. They say they're coming on because they're your ride. Now, this waiting is be waiting ready, but living a holy life. Still living saved, still uh putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, still representing the kingdom of God righteously, living holy, living righteous. Got your life burning, the light still on. You remember the story also in Luke? Chapter 25. About them five, them ten virgins, five wives, five food, the wives, five wives, they kept their lamps burning because they kept them off. When the last time our lives showed that there was still yet a burning, a burning light in our lives. Can your family when the last time your family member saw you still burning with the anointing of God? By the way, you live before them. Because you had Jesus on. Jesus said, Let your loins be girded about and your lights burning. Verse 36. And ye yourselves, telling us what we're supposed to be doing, y'all. All these instructions we just missing. Just go over our head, and all these are instructions how to live and be preparing ourselves for his return. And ye yourselves like unto men. This he said, be like these this kind of be this kind of man, be this kind of woman. And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord. We supposed to be in a ready mode, waiting mode, because we an expecting mode. Let me add that in there. Expecting our Lord to come at any time. But we ain't been more ready. Ever plan something and be ready to go? And the person told me gold, you ain't packed yet. Holding up everybody. Well, that might be fine naturally, but I refuse, and you should refuse to let anybody become a hindrance of your spiritual preparedness. I don't care if it's your husband or your wife, your children, don't let I'm gonna say it again. Don't let nobody become a hindrance for your spiritual preparedness while you're waiting on the Lord. You better get yourself together because they got to get their stuff together too. You better girt your own loins up, you better get your lights burning, and if they don't want you better get it back on, you better get it back burning. We as the saints of God must be dressed and ready. You ain't gonna never start in the word of God where it says getting ready. Jesus has told us very intently in the word be ye also ready. Be ready, not getting ready. We ain't got no time to waste. No time to waste, no, we don't wasted enough. And who's to say you got enough left to make it? Come on now. Out of all the time you wasted, who's to say that what you got left is just gonna be enough left for you to make it? For some it might be, but for others, it might not be. We're in high time. This high time mode. You better take what time you got left and treat it as high time, urgency time, and getting ourselves ready for the Lord. We as the saints of God must be dressed and ready spiritually, waiting for the time and the appearing of our Lord. And as important as Jesus is returning is, I don't mean the home for the sake. That's important. That's the most, that's the main, one of the main conditions in us, let's say, waiting to see Jesus again so he can bring his reward with us, granting us eternal life and forever be in his kingdom with him and God. That's very important. But right now, let me say right now, as important as Jesus returning is, at this point, I'm talking about right now at this point while we're still on the earth. At this point in our time, it is not the most paramount or the most important thing right now. Because that's gonna take care of itself. Jesus returning gonna take care of himself. We ain't got nothing to do with that. Can't stop it, can't hinder it, can't tell it when to do it. But right now, at this point in our lives, our first order of business is we got to get ready and stay ready. Our point of business, just like Jesus, first order of business, when God said return, return is to return. Our first order of business is we should be focused now on being ready, getting ourselves together for when that does happen. This is the time for all that will, and everybody ain't gonna want this because everybody don't want Jesus. Everybody wants to put on Jesus, and everybody don't want to wear the what wardrobe of the righteous. They want to keep doing what they're doing. I told y'all before, when God told Moses to lead the people out of Egypt, everybody wanna go. All of it, all of Israel didn't want to go. Just like everybody in today's generation ain't gonna want to come out of Egypt, ain't gonna want to stop sinning. But nonetheless, nevertheless, this is the time for all that will to put on the wardrobe of the righteous, putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, as Paul instructed the saints in Rome. Now those instructions are for us, the saints of God, in the world today. Whether they be in the United States of America, whether they be in Canada, whether they be in Mexico, whether they be in Europe, whether they be in Russia, whether they be in China, wherever the saints of God are today, it's time for all of us not only to put on the wardrobe with righteousness, putting on Jesus, but to keep him on daily, living this life honestly before him, with our lights burning and our loins girded, honestly, not making provisions for the flesh, casting off the works of darkness, and putting on the armor of light, with the knowledge of knowing that we in high time. Paul said, knowing this, that now is high time, it's time to wake up out of the sleep slumber. Our salvation is nearer than when we first believed, and we better treat it as such, or we will find ourselves lifting up our eyes, and behold, the Lord is returning with clouds to take back with him those that are ready to go back with him when he comes. God bless you. Lord say, Lord say the same next Sunday, Lars a little to see. Next Sunday, I want to go in to just what the wardrobe of the righteous really mean in detail. What it really means to really put on Jesus in detail on our fourth Sunday message, Lord say the same in part two of the wardrobe of the righteous putting on Jesus.