#19 Time Management: A Christian Guide to Redeeming Your Day

Part 1: Wake Up

It would be strange to tell someone to wake up when he is already awake. A teenager may ask mom or dad to wake him up the next morning so he can be certain that he will be on time for work. But if early the next morning, his parents find him in the kitchen already dressed and eating breakfast, they will not start ringing a bell and shouting, “Time to wake up!” It’s clear he doesn’t need a wakeup call.

In that vein, it’s safe to say that God, through the Apostle Paul, would not be calling people to wake up if they were not asleep. He would not waste words telling them to do what they were already doing. This suggests that at least some of the people on his mind as he wrote his letter to the church in Rome must have been asleep. And if that was true of some of them, it’s possible that it’s true of you as well.

Of course, these people were not literally asleep. They were asleep metaphorically. God had assigned them duties, but they were failing to take them seriously. God had called them to be active, but they were being passive. God had called them to live seriously, but they were living flippantly. Paul’s urgency was linked directly to their apathy and laziness.

Are You Asleep?

Is it possible that you are asleep in the way that concerned Paul? How could you know? How could you know if you need this wake-up call? This is a question of self discipline and honesty before God.

The most obvious clues will be found in the immediate context, in what Paul has already taught and emphasized. So let’s briefly consider some of the marks of a Christian who is being lazy instead of active, a Christian who needs to wake up (which is simply another way of saying “a Christian who is not faithfully stewarding and managing his time”).

When we fall into procrastination, we are often spiritually asleep to the purpose of life. Instead of being engaged in Christian living, we find ourselves wasting time on things that do not matter. This section will help you identify if you have lost sight of how to be productive for the Kingdom. If you find that you are drifting, see this not just as a critique, but as a call to a spiritual awakening. Understanding the Bible verses about laziness is the first step toward spiritual growth and learning how to stop being lazy.

1. First, you might be asleep if you are being conformed to the world rather than transformed into the likeness of Christ. In Romans 12:2, we are told, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Christians are to be markedly different from who they were before they pledged their lives to Christ and received his salvation. If you love worldly pleasures, if you pursue worldly ambitions, if you indulge in worldly entertainment, you’re asleep to what God calls you to. Your mind needs to be renewed through a daily devotional life so your whole self can be renewed. If you have not been transformed to be like Christ, you haven’t yet woken up to your true purpose of life.
2. Second, you might be asleep if you are failing to identify and deploy the spiritual gifts God has given to you. Romans 12:6 offers this command: “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.” The Holy Spirit gifts each of us in ways that allow us to bless, love, and serve one another. He calls us to diligently discover these gifts and deploy them. If you are not using your gifts to serve others, especially other Christians within the local church, you may well need to wake up and practice better time management for the sake of the Kingdom.
3. Third, you might be asleep if you are not actively expressing love to others. Consider the words of Romans 12:9–10 and ask yourself: Does this describe me? “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.” Could that be said of you? Is that on your mind when you drive to church on Sunday, when you spend time with your small group, when you relate to friends? If you’re not doing that, perhaps it’s because you haven’t woken up to the call of Christian living.
4. Fourth, you might be asleep if you are not giving to everyone what you owe them. Romans 13:7 urges, “Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.” If you aren’t submitting to the authorities God has placed in your life, you’re not loving your neighbor as yourself. You’re asleep and need to wake up.

Would that describe your life? Is your life being transformed by God? Are you expressing your God-given giftedness in ways that serve others? And are you loving others, even far beyond the way you are being loved?

The fact is, a lot of Christians remain asleep. They are not yet living in the ways God calls them to live. They’re still not understanding how the gospel is meant to prompt and motivate a particular kind of life. If you aren’t living the life of Romans, you need to ask whether you truly understand the doctrine of Romans. This realization is often the beginning of a spiritual awakening.

If you are not living that way, Paul tells you to wake up. He holds the alarm clock high in the air so you can hear it ring and clank. This is a call to discipline and spiritual growth. It is time to stop wasting time and start finding your purpose.

This Is the Time to Wake Up

Because some of the Christians in Rome were asleep, and because it’s possible that you too are asleep, you need to hear Paul’s wake-up call. Here’s what he says in verse 11: “You know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand.”

First, he says, “You know the time.” He means that you know the season and the reality we live in right now—the reality that we live between the time of Christ’s ascension and return. We live in a time when God has assigned sacred duties to each of us. He has a certain kind of life for us to live, a certain kind of testimony for us to display. This is the foundation of Christian living.

Then he says, “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.” In other words, it’s like he draws a big timeline with the day you came to Christ on one side and the day you go to be with Christ on the other side. You are meant to consider this: Where are you on that timeline? You don’t actually know how close you are to the end, but you know that time has passed. You have this finite amount of time to serve God’s purpose. You’re closer to the end of your time today than you were yesterday. What have you done with the time that has passed? What do you intend to do with the time that remains? You must realize that life is short.

How short? Verse 12 provides an answer: “The night is far gone; the day is at hand.” Paul wants you to imagine that you are in the darkness just before dawn. Night is almost over, and daytime is almost here. In his picture, Jesus Christ is going to return when the sun rises. You’re on the cusp. Time is short. The end is almost here. This perspective is vital for spiritual growth.

There is an urgency to Paul’s words. If Christ were returning at sunset, you’d have lots of time to dawdle. But in Paul’s picture, Christ is returning at sunrise, which means the hour is short. The task is urgent. The time is now—the time for wakefulness and the time for action. This is the heart of Gods timing.

I said earlier that a few things in life are more shameful than sleeping when you ought to be at work. It’s shameful to stay asleep when there is work to be done. Paul makes it clear that you have no business now being asleep and lazing around—you have a task to do. This requires self discipline and a commitment to how to stop being lazy. You must reject procrastination and the habit of wasting time.

Of course, questions remain: What is this task? What does it look like? How do you live as someone who is fully awake to God and his purposes? That brings us to our next heading: God has work for you to do. This is where you begin finding your purpose.

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Discussion & Reflection:

1. Are there ways in which you remain asleep? Did any of the above material convince you?
2. When you read Bible verses about laziness, such as Proverbs 6:9–11 and other passages related to sloth, does it describe any present realities and habits in your life? How might you respond in repentance?

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Part 2: God Has Work for You to Do

What are the tasks to which God calls you to awaken? What tasks await you? What are you to do instead of resting and dozing? Said another way: What are you to steward and manage your time toward?

Paul has said, “The night is far gone; the day is at hand.” And then he adds the words, “so then.” These are words of purpose, words that move from waking up to getting active. They bridge from the wake-up call to the explanation of what Christians are to do once they have heeded the alarm: “So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light” (Rom. 13:12).

The Twin Tasks of Awakened People

Paul loves this metaphor of taking off and putting on. He uses it in many of his letters to convey the idea that when you come to Christ, there is a twin task that awaits you. You must stop some things and start others. You must stop some behaviors and begin others. And he depicts this with clothing.

In this little illustration, a soldier is asleep when the trumpet suddenly blows, warning that the enemy is attacking. He’s been in bed wearing his pajamas, but the alarm sounds, and he needs to spring out of bed and put on his uniform. You need to do something like that when you come to Christ. Of course, it’s not clothes you need to take off and put on, but behavior, attitudes, and desires associated with the old self—the one that has been lazily asleep to God’s purpose. It all needs to be replaced with the new self. This is the essence of self discipline and spiritual growth.

Here, Paul ramps it up a little by telling you not only to take off but to cast off the works of darkness. It’s not enough to dawdle or change slowly. That soldier needs to rip off his sleeping clothes, put on his fighting clothes, and make his way to the front lines. This is a call to how to stop being lazy and engage in the battle of Christian living.

Are you awake to God’s great purpose, and are you dressed in the appropriate actions and attitudes? Are you diligently putting off the old and putting on the new? Growth is not merely a matter of actions but also of character. If you want to act more like Christ, you need to become more like Christ. As important as it is to do, it is equally important to become, because your actions will always follow your character.

As Paul extends his teaching, he explains what it means to take off those night clothes. In verse 13, he says, “Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy.”

To walk properly is to walk with decorum and dignity—to live in a way that is fitting for one who has been saved by God. As a Christian, you are to walk nobly instead of ignobly. This is the practical side of discipline and time management: choosing to honor God with your body and your relationships rather than wasting time in sin.

Paul lists three pairs of words that each describe a form of indecent living—actions or attitudes associated with the old way of living. While not exhaustive, this list serves as a mirror for our own lives. When we neglect our morning prayer or daily devotional, we often find ourselves slipping back into these old “night clothes” of laziness and worldliness.

1. First, he mentions “orgies and drunkenness.” I understand that if you’re the kind of person who reads a couple thousand words into a field guide, you’re probably not the kind of person who gets blind drunk or participates in orgies (which in the Bible tends to refer to drinking parties rather than explicitly sexual occasions). But we should consider what lies behind the words. While they overtly refer to a life of partying and carousing, a life of drinking and addiction, they represent a life of escapism, an unserious life spent avoiding the duties God has assigned. And that may be something you can identify with more than outright drunkenness.
2. Next is “sexual immorality and sensuality.” Those refer to sins of the body, sins of sexuality. This is using other people for your own pleasure and misusing God’s good gifts for selfish purposes instead of God’s purposes. Few factors in society today have made a deeper impact on stewarding and managing time than becoming engaged in sexual immorality, most notably through pornography.
3. Then comes “quarreling and jealousy.” These are social sins that affect your relationships with others. You may be far too upright to drink yourself drunk, you may be far too noble to sleep with someone who isn’t your spouse, but if you are quarrelsome, if you like to pick a fight, if you are petty and jealous, if you are discontent with what God has given you and envious of what he has given others, you’re living in a way that dishonors him. You’re still asleep, still acting like someone who is slumbering through the night instead of waking up to serve the Lord throughout the day. You might be missing opportunities to steward your time toward the highest of purposes because you’re giving it to the lowest of purposes.

What are you called to do instead of frittering away your life in escapism and indulgence, in sexual immorality and senseless bickering? We are accustomed to being told to imitate Christ or be like Christ. Here, Paul expresses it a little differently. He says, in verse 14, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

As you put off those ugly behaviors, you are to put on Christ. In other words, you are to wear Christ as your clothing or as your armor. That’s a picture of being fully reliant on him, fully devoted to him, fully submitted to him, and doing your utmost to imitate him in every way. This is the ultimate goal of spiritual growth.

Paul wraps up the verse by insisting you are to “make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” That means not even considering how to feed the flesh or how to indulge its evil desires. It means refusing to dwell on the gratification that comes from sin rather than on the gratification that comes from obeying God. It calls you to ensure you are not allowing your mind to dwell on sin when it should be dwelling on Christ through morning prayer and daily devotional time. In other words, it calls you to steward your time toward what delights God.

What Binds the Sins Together

Now we get to the key. What binds all these sins together is this: they are failures of love. This matters because the great implication of the gospel is love! To fail to love is to fail to understand and apply the gospel. If you believe the doctrine of Romans 1–11, you need to live out the life of Romans 12–16—a life wholly committed to love.

The gospel calls you to love in the way you have been loved. It calls you to clothe yourself in Christ. Your duty and responsibility is to live your life in love—loving others as a display of God’s love for you.

What this means is that your time management and productivity are far bigger than yourself. Your task is not to fabricate some sense of inner meaning, but to love—to steward and manage your time toward love. The best reason to be productive is to express your gratitude to God through service to others. This is the purpose of life and the heart of Christian living.

Love Your Neighbor

Every Christian should have a deep longing to be productive—to devote the best of their time to the best of all purposes. Productivity is “effectively stewarding your gifts, talents, time, energy, and enthusiasm for the good of others and the glory of God.”

Productivity is deploying:

– Gifts: Spiritual gifts given to serve others.
– Talents: Innate abilities from God.
– Time: The number of days allocated to you (life is short).
– Energy: The ebb and flow of your abilities.
– Enthusiasm: Passions God has given you.

It is taking all you are and turning it outward. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). As you faithfully steward your time to glorify God by serving others, you are walking in the footsteps of our Savior. This is the path to finding your purpose.

I want you to take this away more than anything—you are called to direct your life toward love. This is the highest form of self discipline. By rejecting laziness and procrastination, you free yourself to serve.

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Discussion & Reflection:

1. In absolute honesty, are you in bondage to any of the sins that Paul outlines? If you are, can you understand how that will impact your ability to faithfully steward and manage your time? What might God be calling you to do about those sins?
2. Why is a life stewarded toward expressing your love for God by loving other people such a fulfilling life? Why is it more fulfilling than living toward a sense of inner purpose?
3. Consider Jesus and how he stewarded his time. What can you learn from his example and Gods timing?
4. What specific actions might God be calling you to take so you replace wasting time and self-indulgence with expressing love to others?

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Part 3: A Method for Stewardship and Management

This brings us at last to methodology. And methodology matters because your calling is so important and your task is so urgent. There are people to love and opportunities to serve. By implementing some methods, you can grow in your ability to take advantage of each one.

I would like to help you build a method—a set of habits and commitments—that will enable you to manage your time. This is a very good place to begin your journey of self discipline.

Step One: Inventory Your Responsibilities

The first step is to inventory the responsibilities God has assigned to you. You have a finite amount of time and an infinite number of potential opportunities. A manager of time needs to determine what is a responsible use of time and what is an irresponsible use.

An area of responsibility is a role or function God has assigned to you.

Personal: Caring for your own body, soul, and mind (including morning prayer and daily devotional).

– Family: Obligations toward parents, children, or siblings.
– Church: Living out your faith in a serving community.
– Job/Vocation: Your main position, whether in an office, school, or home.
– Social/Friends/Hobbies: Other areas that vary by life circumstances.

Spend a few minutes creating a list of 5–6 broad categories. Once established, list the specific tasks or roles under each. Ask yourself: “When the day comes when God requires an account, what will you have had to faithfully steward?”

Example under “Personal”:

• Physical health (how to stop being lazy regarding exercise).
• Spiritual health (Bible verses about working hard, prayer).
• Personal growth (learning and reading).

By completing this audit, you gain an understanding of what God has made you responsible for. This is the foundation of effective time management.

Step Two: Define Your Mission

The second step is optional but helpful. Now that you have wrapped your mind around your life, you should consider: What does success look like? I suggest you craft a mission statement—a statement of purpose that serves as a standard for Christian living.

You can create one mission statement for your whole life or one for each area. A mission statement helps you answer: “Did I fulfill this?” and “How will I fulfill this?”

Remember that the controlling principle is love. Each mission should relate to living out that purpose. Establishing your mission gives you confidence in finding your purpose and saying “yes” to the right opportunities while saying “no” to things that waste time.

When you define your mission, you are better equipped to handle procrastination because you know exactly what you are working toward. You are learning how to be productive by aligning your daily actions with your eternal calling. This clarity is essential for spiritual growth and ensuring that you are not merely busy, but effective in Gods timing.

Step Three: Select Your Tools

So far you have carried out an audit on your life and defined your mission. The third step is to choose your tools. Tools are essential to getting things done well and efficiently. It makes sense to invest some effort in choosing the right tool for the job.

There are three tools that are essential to an efficient and trustworthy system of time management. These three are distinct, yet complementary:

1. Information tool: Allows you to collect, organize, store, and access information. Today, most people prefer an app like Dropbox, Apple Notes, Microsoft OneNote, Notion, or Evernote. This is where you keep your daily devotional notes, ideas, and documents.
2. Scheduling tool: Allows you to visualize time and receive reminders about what is urgent. This is your calendar (Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, Outlook). It helps you honor Gods timing by organizing your appointments.
3. Task tool: Allows you to collect and organize your to-do items. Apple Reminders, Google Tasks, and Microsoft To Do are all sufficient. This tool is vital for self discipline, as it tracks what needs to be done.

Choose an information tool, a scheduling tool, and a task tool. For most people, the basic options that come with your phone will be sufficient to help you learn how to be productive.

Step Four: Build a System

The fourth step is to build a system—a set of repeated methods, procedures, and routines. You want a system that is so trustworthy that you can rely on it to store information, remember tasks, and ensure you are where you need to be. You will entrust this information to your tools and trust your system to bring it back to you.

– Your information tool is for storing files, meeting notes, or ideas that flit into your mind.
This supports your spiritual growth by capturing insights you may need later.
– Your scheduling tool is where you visualize available time. It is the place for meetings and events that happen at a particular time.
– Your task tool is for recording granular tasks with due dates. To fight procrastination, don’t just write “Write a Book”; break it down into “Create outline” or “Write the introduction.” Beginning each task with a verb makes it clear what needs to be done to avoid wasting time.

A well-established organizing principle is “a home for everything and like goes with like.” This means:

– When you receive an important PDF, save it to your information tool.
– When you have a meeting at 3 PM next Tuesday, add it to your scheduling tool.
– When you need to stop by the store, add it to your task tool.

Maintaining distinction between these tools is key to Christian living. It allows you to move away from the chaos of laziness and toward a life of order. By using these tools faithfully, you are practicing the discipline required to steward the time God has given you.

Step Five: Establish a Review

The fifth step is one that will happen regularly—daily for some, weekly for others. In this step, you will review your system and tools to ensure everything is in order. Every system tends toward chaos rather than order, and every person tends toward apathy rather than effort. For that reason, any system relies upon a degree of care and maintenance. This is where self discipline meets your daily routine.

I suggest taking a few moments at the beginning of each day to check your task tool and see what is due. Also, check your scheduling tool to see which appointments are coming up. This will help you understand how much time you have available. Your scheduling tool shows you what time is available, and your task tool shows you what can be scheduled into that time. This simple act of time management helps you avoid wasting time on low-priority distractions.

The second regular review is done weekly or monthly. In this review, you will look at your areas of responsibility and your mission statements to consider whether you are living the kind of life to which God has called you. You will ask whether you are expressing love for God and your fellow man. This is a vital time for spiritual growth and ensuring your Christian living aligns with your convictions.

Step Six: Get Things Done

The sixth and final step is to get things done! It is to steward and manage your time. You do that by following your system and using your tools day by day. Complete your regular reviews and let the system build your confidence.

Build the system until you trust it to remember whatever needs to be remembered and to direct you toward the tasks that most fulfill the purpose of life God has given you. Be willing to adapt it to the changing circumstances of your life. By rejecting laziness and procrastination, you are finally learning how to be productive for the glory of God.

As you start your morning prayer or daily devotional, ask God for the strength to be a faithful steward. Remember that life is short, but with discipline and an understanding of Gods timing, you can live a life of meaningful service. You now have the motive and the method—it is time to get to work.

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Discussion & Reflection:

1. Which of these steps do you already have in place, whether in the way described here or otherwise? Which will be new for you? Do any strike you as particularly challenging?
2. Who is a mentor or trusted friend you could ask to help keep you accountable as you build out a system for productivity?
3. Reflect on Bible verses about working hard. How does this scriptural foundation change your perspective on how to stop being lazy?

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Conclusion

I began this field guide by insisting that, more important than any system of productivity or any system that helps you master your time, is establishing your motive. I trust you have learned that motives matter and that the best stewardship follows from the best motives. I trust you have learned that the best motive of all for stewarding and managing your time is the motive of love—to display your love for God and your awe at what he has done for you by deliberately and delightfully directing your life toward the noble purpose of loving others. There is no greater motive, no greater purpose, and no greater satisfaction than this. For this is why God made us and why God saved us.

Recommended Resources

1. Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity by Tim Challies
2. What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done by Matt Perman
3. Redeeming Productivity: Getting More Done for the Glory of God by Reagan Rose

All three of these books express a distinctly Christian view of productivity and time management and all three will guide you to further resources that can prove helpful as you grow in both knowledge and implementation.

About the Author

TIM CHALLIES is a pastor, noted speaker, author, and a pioneer in the Christian blogosphere. Tens of thousands of people visit Challies.com each day, making it one of the most widely read and recognized Christian blogs in the world. Tim is the author of several books, including Visual Theology, Epic: An Around-the-World Journey through Christian History, and Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God. He and his family reside near Toronto, Ontario.