Turining Point Church

Ephesians 5: 15-17 “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. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.”

Time is the one commodity that can’t be retrieved once used. It is forever racing past us, like it or not. The million dollar question is—how will we use it? Inescapably, the time allotted each of us will be used one way or the other. Will it be wasted? Squandered? Ignored? Used for evil things? Or will it be redeemed; seized and utilized for the glory of God?

Poet Linda Ellis wrote a poem called “The Dash” that set a lot of people to thinking. It begins with the following words:

I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
From the beginning to the end.

He noted that first came the date of her birth
And spoke of the following date with tears,
But he said what mattered most of all
Was the dash between those years.

Before reading the poem further, think with me a moment. By God’s grace we have been granted another year—2012. God willing, most of us will still be here to ring in its close. This New Year will comprise a part of our “dash.” Let’s read on:

For that dash represents all the time
That she spent alive on earth
And now only those who loved her
Know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own,
The cars, the house, the cash,
What matters is how we live and love
And how we spend our dash.

Well put! When our dash is finished, the toys we accumulated, the stuff we owned, and the money we made will count for little. What shall matter most is what we did for the glory of God, how we loved others, and how true we were to our God-given callings. Paul advises us by the Holy Spirit to “make the most” of every God-given opportunity to touch this dark and desperate world for Christ.

So, imagining 2012 to be a dash all its own, how will we spend it? Will this “dash” be comprised of the same old, same old? Taking care only of ourselves? Running hither and yon in a cloud of hectic busyness? Or will this dash be used to impact our city, country and world with a genuine outpouring of His Spirit and a great harvest of souls?

I believe the dash is what we make of it. Time is a gift, not a right. It will either be seized to serve God’s glory, or will be squandered in the numbing blur of vacuous routine. In light of this, I have a dream for our 2012 dash. It is simple and goes like this:

That TPC will focus like a laser on our God-given purpose—IN REACH, OUTREACH, AND UP REACH. No successful distractions, detours, or delays allowed.

In case you aren’t aware of the vision of Turning Point and wonder what I mean by those three purposes, here it is in a nutshell:

IN REACH means building Christ in every person: “…that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, ¹⁵ but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ” (Eph.4:14-15).

OUT REACH means preaching the Gospel to every person we can, by all the means we can, as fast as we can: “Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. ²⁰ Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you” (Matt.28:19-20).

UP REACH means leading every person into the Presence of God through heartfelt, genuine worship: “But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way” (John 4:23).

At the end of this New Year dash, I want to be able to say that we did just this, and did it well! “The Dash” poem ends better than I could ever put it. Read and Selah:

So when your eulogy is being read
With your life’s actions to rehash
Would you be proud of the things they say
About how you spent your dash?