Part 1 covered the body. Part 2 covered the soul. Now we come to the shortest resource of the three:
Your time!
You do not know how much of it you have left. Neither do I. And this changes everything about how a Christian is supposed to care for himself.
The Rest of Your Time
1 Peter 4:2 “That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.”
The rest of your time. That is what you have.
Peter does not say a whole life, many years or that we have plenty of time.
We do not know how much rest is left. If you only give fifty percent effort now to make sure you can perform later, you are operating foolishly because you do not actually know how much later you have. You might have decades or you might have months. The Owner of the temple did not tell us, and He does not owe us the timeline.
Go as hard as you can while you can. When the tank starts running low, refuel so you can go hard again.
Wear Out. Do Not Rust Out.
Spurgeon lived a life where he went very hard. He preached until he could barely stand. He worked until his body gave out. He carried the burdens of his church, his college, his orphanage, and thousands of readers on his shoulders week after week. He also battled deep depression his whole adult life. He suffered from gout, kidney disease, and constant exhaustion. He was hospitalized many times. He took long recovery trips to warmer climates because his body demanded it.
And still he said, “I would rather wear out than rust out.”
Spurgeon understood both sides of this. He knew how to rest and he knew how to spend himself. He rested so he could keep spending. He did not rest so he could preserve himself. His days off in France were not retirement. They were refueling stops on a long hard race!
A rusted tool is worse than a worn one. A worn tool served the mission until it could serve no more. A rusted tool sat on a shelf being protected until it was useless. God gave you the body, the mind, the time, and the calling to be used. Not to be preserved.
But wearing out and burning out are not the same thing. Wearing out takes a lifetime and burning out takes a season. The Christian who runs at twenty-year-old speed when they are fifty will burn out early and lose the last decades of the race.
We must keep in mind, when you are younger you can do more with less rest. As you get older, you must rest more.
The same body that ran on four hours of sleep at twenty needs eight at forty and nine at sixty. Trying to run the older engine like the younger one is how you break down early and lose the last chapter of your ministry opportunities.
Paul understood pacing.
2 Timothy 4:7 “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”
Finishing my course is marathon language. Paul was not proud of running fast. He was proud of finishing and finishing requires pacing.
