LESS TIME EQUALS LESS INFLUENCE

Main Scriptures: Deut.6:1-10

More Scriptures: Gen.12:3, Matt.6:22, Matt.26:41

I want to let you know that as the head of your family and the spiritual guide for your wife and children, errors and assumptions increase with distance. The farther you are from your flock, the greater the risk of making mistakes about their identities and needs. This is important. As the shepherd over the sheep, you must maintain vigilance over their lives. You must do everything within your power to ensure that nothing creates separation between you and your flock. Some of the likely triggers why you may have less time for your wife and children could be a new appointment, a new job role or even advice from friends or relations. Whatever the factors may be, you must ensure that nothing replaces you in the lives of your flock.

If you examine the Scripture in Deuteronomy chapter 6, you will realize that God provides you with various opportunities through which you could bridge any distance between you and your sheep. It says, and you shall teach them diligently unto your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up (Deut.6:7). God sent you into the lives of your wife and children so that you can influence them for Jesus Christ. That is why He made you the head and gave you the first line charge over their lives. So, for you to influence your flock, you must maintain closeness with them.

But how do I devote more time for my flock and create the needed influence I desire as a godly shepherd? First, you must prioritize your activities-job, work, ministry, business, career- in their order of importance. You must know what is important to God and not what the world thinks. In Matt.6:22, the Word of God says, let your eyes be single and your whole body will be full of light (Matt.6:22). You must focus your time investment in building good and godly wife and children. Secondly, you must contend against every force of distraction through prayers and fasting. Sometimes, some job opportunities appear handsomely rewarding but are traps set by the devil to steal your family and peace. This is why the Bible that warns that there is a way that seems right to man but the end is destruction. As you engage these spiritual weapons, God through His Holy Spirit begins to reveal His perfect will for you. And as you invest your time which is your life in the lives of your flock, you will make the most of God’s influence in their lives.

SPIRITUAL EXERCISE

• Father, by Your Spirit, help me to plan my life, work and family in order to please You.
• Father, by Your Spirit, reveal every satanic trap set to steal my attention from and destroy my family.
• Father, by the power in the blood of Jesus, rescue my life from every destructive tendency.

FAITH CONFESSION

I vow to devote more time to my wife and children. It is the key to impacting them for Jesus Christ as a good and godly husbandman in Jesus name. Amen.