Seconds---minutes---days---weeks---months---years---decades---centuries---millennia

    The next level would likely be infinity. Yet, time does not actually have such a division. The concept of infinity is a concept that fits better with the entity of Eternity.  Both Eternity and infinity include the idea of endlessness. Eternity is – well Eternity! It is the true infinity. This is so, because Eternity expresses the concept of unending; everlasting. Eternity!

    Our knowledge of time begins with Genesis. The measuring of time is first registered with Genesis 1:3. When the Almighty begins the first day, it is expressed in terms of time. When He sets forth light and separates darkness from it, and then proclaims “the first day,” the Creator sets in place time’s concept of moving forward. Such is still the nature of time – it passes – as it moves forward. 

    It seems logical to conclude, then, that time is a created concept. God is Eternal. He is not regulated by, or subject to, time as far as His Being and activity are concerned. This cannot be said about humanity and the other forms of life that God created. We are creatures of time. Our Creator made things that way, and placed us in a situation that is based upon time and its passing or moving forward.

    When we stop to think about it, we realize that we are so connected to time that we come early to understand that human life is chaotic if we do not acknowledge the many aspects of time. As humans probed their environment, it became evident that our whole system (which came to be called the solar system) is governed by time. Indeed, all of planetary space operates by time concepts. Science informs us that disaster would ensue if the orderly nature of space timing were to be interrupted.

    Time, then, is the stuff of life! Time is the very essence of living on earth. It is not surprising that God expects humans to honor the value of time and use it as for Eternity. Someone has said, “Time is capital, invest it wisely.” As we study the Bible, we are impressed, over and over, with the truth that time is not endless. Generational realities are prime proof of this. We need only go by a cemetery for this to be brought to our consciousness. Such Scriptures as Hebrews 9:27 remind us that time is running out for each of us and that then we shall be subject to God’s critique of how we used it.

    The following verses beautifully expresses this (whose author I know not):
         The clock of life is wound but once,
         And no man has the power,
         To tell just when the clock will stop,
         At late or early hour.
         Now is all the time we have,
         So live, love, toil, with a will.
         Place no stock in tomorrow,
         For your clock may then be still.

---Robert L. Gregg