Redeeming the Time

our mother, the school cook
our mother, the school cook

The Hightower family’s year started in September, the day school started when I was a kid. Our mama worked at the school cafeteria. We Hightower kids lived our lives by the school and church schedule

If it was October, we celebrated Columbus Day, the day that Columbus discovered the New World. In November for Thanksgiving, we studied the Pilgrims and the Indians who helped them survive the harsh winter. If it was Monday, we went to school. If it was Wednesday, we went to school, then to church.

When May came and school was out, we played all summer, then started our Year over again—in school.

The calendar year we use in the United States is the Christian or Gregorian calendar, which starts in January. Using another calendar, the Jewish calendar that our Lord Jesus used, the one instituted by the Lord God Almighty, the Jewish year starts in the month of Tishri, which corresponds to September /October on the Christian calendar. So you might say that the Hightower family has followed the Jewish calendar for many years.

Now it is almost September, 2009.

Paul said in Romans 13:11 NKJV “And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

And in Ephesians 5:16, “redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”

High time, redeeming the time. Translated from the Greek word ‘kairos,’ this means ‘the right time, the opportune time, the appointed time, God’s time.”

We are entering the Appointed Time, God’s time, the Opportune time, according to the calendar that God gave the Israelites.

The Strong’s Concordance defines the word ‘redeem’ as, “to buy up, to make wise and sacred use of every opportunity for doing good, so that zeal and well doing are as it were the purchase money by which we make the time our own.” Are you making the very most of every opportunity to do good?

It is the Appointed Time to wake up, spiritually and mentally, and redeem the time. What calendar are you using for scheduling your life?