Full transcript of “STOP Wasting Your Evenings: A Wake-Up Call for Christians”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 Stop wasting your evenings. Your evening is either a gateway to your spiritual growth, or it's a graveyard of your calling, your potential, and your purpose. Most people clock out spiritually and mentally after work. But what if your evenings are the most crucial part of your day? People that I've met who have callings and giftings, they waste their evenings and they wonder why are the promises, prophetic words are on delay. I want to share with you today. This is not a self-help little trick and a secret to get advanced in life. But this is a spiritual principle that many spiritual people put to practice. For example, Jesus prayed in the evening. Matthew 14 23. You see that he dismisses people.
0:45 This is a good time to go chill, relax, and you see that he goes up to the mountain and he spends time there alone with the father. He didn't waste his nights. He reconnected with his heavenly father. David meditated at night. Psalm 63:6, he would say, "I remember you on my bed. He didn't just pull out the phone and scrolled on his bed. He simply spent time worshiping," not wasted his time on entertainment. Paul worked with his hands by day and he taught by night. In book of Acts chapter 20 and verse 31, it shows that Paul would pour into others even in the evening. He used every part of his day including evenings purposefully and intentionally. Now I do
1:31 not mean that we shouldn't have time where we rest. We shouldn't have a day of rest. We should. The Bible commands us to have that to have a day where we don't work and in the evening we can rest and we can relax. But there's a difference between resting and numbing yourself. Resting and just simply indulging in the works of the flesh. So some practical things I want to share with you about not wasting your evenings. Your evenings, how you spend them, reveal your priorities. Everyone has 24 hours, but how you use your last four to five hours really tell the truth about what your priorities are. You keep telling everybody you want to finish school, but your four or five hours
2:16 every day are spent probably on social media, probably watching television, hanging out maybe with people that are not bringing you closer to God or your destiny. You could have finished school by this time if you would have taken advantage. This doesn't mean that every second of your day has to be intentional, but it does mean four to five hours a day should be intentional if you have a purpose that you're trying to fulfill. After work, that's when idleness creeps in or your intentional growth begins. You decide that you might not be able to change your 8-hour job, but you can change what you do your five hours after your job. Don't allow idleness to creep in. Allow intentional
3:02 spiritual growth to begin. The second thing I would like to share with you, and that is in your evenings, don't feed the flesh. See, the enemy loves your idle heart and distracted mind. He loves when you go through endless scrolling. He loves when you go drinking, clubbing, nightclubs, numbing yourself. These things are not neutral. These things are intentions. Intentionally feeding the flesh. Romans 13:14, it says this, "Make no provision for the flesh." Even according to psychology, they say that most bad decisions like impulse spending, porn viewing, binge eating happens after 900 p.m. Your willpower gets depleted by the
3:51 evening. Unless you're spiritually and mentally prepared and you set your mind that you're going to do something intentional, your flesh will get louder as your spirit is getting quieter because your body is getting more tired. Don't let your guard down at night. Somebody drop that in the comment right now. Don't let down your guard at night. So, when you're in the evening, avoid these traps. Scrolling for hours without purpose. Put some time limit on your social media. Watching content that stirs lust, fear, or gossip or witchcraft. Drinking or parting to unwind. Saying, "I'll pray tomorrow. I'll finish
4:38 tomorrow. I'll do that tomorrow." Postponing everything. Pharaoh did that when frogs came to Egypt and Moses came and said, "Hey, just tell me when do you want the frogs removed?" And he's like, "Tomorrow." And many people live like that. just postponing, procrast procrastinating all the time, letting your Bible collect dust while you're watching reruns on Netflix or your favorite TV shows on rerun. Third thing you need to keep in mind to not waste your evenings and that is you have to break the spirit of laziness. There's this attitude, there is this thing that comes in the evenings and many people fall prey to it. Proverbs chapter 6:10 it says, "A little sleep, a little slumber and poverty will come." Please
5:24 do not confuse rest with laziness. Rest replenishes you. Laziness delays you. It delays your destiny. It brings poverty. It kills your productivity. And Bible is against laziness. And can I tell you the biggest battle for procrastination happens in the evening when you finished your work. This is when most of us battle with procrastination. Books could have been written. Ministries could have been launched. Sermons could have been created. Deep encounters with God could have been made. Spiritual batteries could have been recharged. Classes could have been done. Degrees could have been earned.
6:11 had we won the battle with procrastination. So in the evening, block out a focused hour for reading or writing or planning or building some kind of a side project. Block that like reserve that, plan for that. Perhaps you need to turn your phone to do not disturb in the evening. You're not that important where the world revolves around you. You can allow most closest people to you to still call to you after second repeated call, but you don't need to be as available to everybody where your calling and your purpose is being postponed. Also create evening rules that honor your calling.
6:59 Maybe things like, hey, I'm not going to be watching this kind of stuff after this many hours or I'm going to go for a walk or I'm going to go on the run or I'm going to exercise. create some kind of a evening rhythm that helps you to live in revival. The fourth thing is move your body and sharpen your mind. Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 9 verse 27, I discipline my body. So in the evening people tend to fall into overeating. They sit on the couch, watch a lot of television. You have to understand procrastination and laziness leads to more procrastination and laziness. It kills every and any motivation you have left and you will be left with so little
7:45 of it. Then comes the guilt. Then comes the shame. Then comes the regret. Then comes the feeling bad for yourself, feeling horrible about yourself. All of these things they follow a life that's not disciplined. And the place where it's the most difficult to be disciplined for many people is when they finish work. So take care of your body. Go for a little exercise. You don't want to exercise, go for a walk, 10 minute walk. Rest well. Go to sleep earlier so that you can get enough sleep. There is no badge of honor by being sleepdeprived and your body suffering. Use evenings to learn a new skill. Grow your skill, your craft, your calling. Plan for your
8:33 tomorrow. Catch up on things while other people are wasting their evenings. Get ahead. Improve. Get better. Things that Christians should start doing in the evenings. Shut off screens at a particular time. Read scripture before going to bed. Start with small one. Put your phone in another room. Game changer. I remember when I bought a um an alarm next to my bed and would leave the phone in a different room. Game changer schedule either one chapter per night or one hour growth hour. So I usually have like books and before I go to sleep would just read. I usually aim for one chapter not just the Bible but
9:19 one of the books spiritual books that helps me to grow keep my mind sharp. build a windown worship or a prayer routine. So, you really want to wind down, turn on some Christian soaking tracks, check out my playlist and something I have playing in my house in the evenings all the time so that the atmosphere is the one that honors the Holy Spirit. Keep a journal near to your bed for thoughts God might give you when kind of everything is going down and quieting down. Number five of how not to waste your evenings. Prioritize your family and spiritual community. Don't give your spouse or kids the leftover of your energy. Block out nights for conversation, date nights, family, and disciplehip. Make time for small groups
10:08 and friendships that sharpen you. You know, if you cut out the aimless scrolling and the entertainment and you make a goal, I want to spend one evening every week in a small group. It may seem a lot at first. It's a game changer. And for those of you who are like, man, no, I'm not going to waste time on the small group. I need to like get ahead. I need to hustle. Hold on. You also need a community. Iron sharpens iron. You know my schedule the way it works is that in the evenings we carve out few hours together now that I have a little baby you know to go for a walk to play to really have that time where the work doesn't come into those hours because when I am working my baby doesn't come
10:54 into my work you know I'm focused at my work and when I'm with my family I'm focused on my family sometimes people will say Vlad you're busy and I like to respond and say I am not busy I am present in every environment that I walk in. Now, I try my best. I can't tell you that it always works the way I want it to, but it's my aim to be present in every room or environment I walk in. And then when my baby goes to sleep, I have few hours to catch up with my wife, few hours to maybe read, sometimes to work on certain content, even some message ideas begin to flow, and I'm just kind of open to sharpen those uh things that God has called me to do. And number six, not to waste your evening, is end the day with reflection. I personally love
11:41 to do that. I try to reflect on what I learned today. Um, review some goals, pray over tomorrow, um, plan tomorrow, put things on my calendar of what I'm going to do tomorrow. Psalm 4:8, it says, "In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety. Please don't waste your evenings. Don't surrender your calling to distraction. In this season, you are required to put in some discipline. Your desire and intention is not enough. You have to put in some discipline. Your growth is not just about early encounters with God. It's also about not wasting your
12:28 evenings. If this resonated with you, drop that in the comment. I'm taking my evenings back. I'm taking my evenings back. And share this with someone who might be stuck in spiritual laziness. Thank you for watching this video. Since 2020, our ministry has reached over 280 million people online. We've released over 82 resources in 18 languages. and have about 160,000 students in our school. And we distribute thousands of books, even into prisons and closed nations. But that's just half of the story. We're building homes for vulnerable kids in Brazil,
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