Have you noticed at your office meetings how some participants appear more effective than others? While other members are busy shuffling through papers, these efficient ones are moving forward with the meeting agenda. These are the participants who know how to get more out of the day. They do not wait until the day of the meeting to start preparing for it.
Extrapolate your meeting to the nation and you start to see why some nations are developed while others are underdeveloped. In a previous post, we mentioned how time is the only true equal opportunity employer. Regardless of gender, age, educational achievement or social standing, we each get twenty-four hours every day. What determines your accomplishment in life is the subject of our post today.
Once you understand how to get more out of the day, you will see amazing increase in your achievements. And this happens regardless of your sector of endeavor. It is quite possible that these super achievers may not know the source of their success. It is such a iron-clad principle that it will work even for people who do not know God. Remember, God says that He causes the rain to fall on the good and the bad.
But we who are believers, who know their God, have an advantage. We take comfort in the fact that God introduced this particular strategy. And since we are related to Him, we automatically know how to get more out of the day. I hope you know that when we accepted Jesus Christ into our lives, we got God’s DNA. We are new creatures now; the old has passed away. All things, including that DNA, have become new.
Believers Know How To Get More Out Of The Day
Consequently, we automatically know how to get more out of the day. You see, it is God who developed this strategy right from the beginning of the world. We see it in the very first chapter of the book of Genesis. Take the first day for instance; it started with the evening. “God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.”
Before we delve into this success strategy, let us take a moment to enjoy the additional beauty of that verse. It shows that as soon as the light of God comes into a person’s heart, he receives the strategy. God shows him how to get more out of the day. And you know that Jesus is the light of God. There are two points to note bout the believer and success. First, not everybody who claims to be a believer loves the light of God.
Such believers may be busy in their local church; they may even hold positions. But because they do not study the scriptures, they fail to receive the light of God. Only in meditating on the word of God can we receive enlightenment and even become wiser than our teachers. Therefore, believers who refuse to study the bible remain in the dark. They cannot apprehend God’s strategy for how to get more out of the day.
Secondly, we must not confuse having success with the absence of problems. Just because you are a child of God means that the devil is angry with you. That is why afflictions come with the Christian territory. However, even as we are promised that our afflictions will be many, God delivers us out of them all.
The Day Starts With The Evening
The outcome of these two points is that although a bible-studying Christian may suffer, He invariably overcomes. Problems don’t overwhelm believers the way they cause unbelievers to commit suicide, for instance. We get to smile at the storm. Praise God.
We now come to God’s strategy for how to get more out of the day. In the verse which we quoted earlier, the bible talks about the evening and the morning making the first day. Please note the sequence. That first day of creation started with the evening. And to ensure we don’t imagine that it is a mistake, the bible repeats it several more times. It must be important and those who take it to heart have discovered how to get more out of the day.
God took the trouble to reiterate it because it flies in the face of popular culture. The world says that the day starts in the morning but God says it starts the previous evening. Which version you go with determines how well your day goes and how much success you achieve in life. Evidently, the super-achievers in our midst go with God. Even in little details, you know that your day goes better when you start preparing the evening before.
I once heard of a lady who arrived in town for her own mother’s funeral with two left shoes. She only discovered her mistake when it was time to get ready for the funeral. She could have avoided such a mistake if she knew that the day always starts with the evening. I don’t recall how she resolved that particular issue but she obviously needs to learn how to get more out of the day.
Jesus Crucifixion Started The Evening Before
You do not wait until Sunday morning to write your tithe or offering check. Or to set out your church clothes. At the office, your day is smooth if you start your secular preparation the evening before. And the strategy is not limited to the first chapter of the bible.
The high point of our salvation is a case in point. Jesus’ crucifixion started in the evening before it happened. Jesus instituted the Holy Communion in the evening before the day. Even poor Judas Iscariot started his murderous plan the evening before and when he went out, “it was night.” The women who wanted to go to Jesus’ tomb to embalm His body also started their preparations the evening before. They knew how to get more out of the day.
The entire nation of Israel knows this principle of commencing the day the evening before. For instance, the Sabbath starts at 4.00 pm on Friday, in preparation for the Saturday. We shall have no comments on the success of the Jews. But it appears that they know how to get more out of the day.
Will you join them in starting your day from the evening before? Your age does not matter. God wants us to run with each piece of understanding He gives us anytime He releases it. This is your day. Grasp this understanding and run with it to get more out of the day.
Maranatha!
