Jesus said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”

This was not a mere statement about His poverty, it was a revelation about His commitment. Jesus committed everything to developing His disciples. He did not seek personal, carnal gain by investing in them.

He immersed and invested His life by giving His time to them.

As disciple-makers for Jesus Christ, the question must be asked: How do we spend our time?

Deloitte, an international professional services network, ran a study in 2018 revealing how Americans spend their time. Unsurprisingly and unfortunately, what Americans most do is sleep, work, and watch TV. Is the same said about disciple-making Americans?

These highlights reveal to us that we have a crisis – not of time management, but self-management.

No human can manage time, but we can manage ourselves.

Certainly, we must sleep in order to rest. We must work in order to eat. But what about our screen time and internet use?

Studies have been conducted that the COVID pandemic did not make matters better for the average person, our self-management became worse.

OnePoll discovered that screen time jumped from an average of four hours pre-COVID to six hours during and after COVID-19.

The table below is a result of data gathered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, measured in hours. It shows us that on a daily basis, the majority of our leisure time, approximately three hours, is spent watching TV. While the religious and spiritual activities only occupy an average of just seven minutes a day.

As disciple-makers, we should look for opportunities to make a spiritual impact and investment into people, no matterwhat activity we are engaging in.

The question we must ask ourselves is this: Are we spending our time, or investing our time?

When we spend our time on temporal efforts, the “return of investment” is virtually none. Yet, when we invest our time on eternal efforts, we can expect a heavenly reward.

By the grace of God, we can take charge in better managing ourselves so that we may become greater stewards of our time. If we were honest with ourselves, we would realize that we make time for what’s important to us. Whether it is social media, the news, making money, we make it fit it into our schedules. How much more should we prioritize the things that benefit our spiritual lives and relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ? His Kingdom is waiting on us to seekit first.

When Matthew wrote to seek His Kingdom first and His righteousness, the Greek word prōton means “first in time, significance, and place.” Truly, we must be honest with ourselves in whether or not we are fulfilling the words of Jesus and prioritizing the things that reap eternal benefit.

Let us discover that the grace of God causes us to rise above the demands and stresses of life into a path of peace and joy in doing His will.