Did you ever wonder where the term “Prince of this World” came from? In the book of John, the author refers two times to Satan as being the ruler of this world. In the book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul refers to Satan as the prince of the power of the air. This gives us the common phrase that our enemy, Satan or the Devil, is the Prince of this World. What does that mean for us as we decide how to use our time and organize our lives?

Let’s start with what this does not mean. It does not mean Satan is superior to God and that everything everywhere is controlled by the Devil.  The Devil has been given a “short” reign on earth. Two main things come into play in limiting his effectiveness. The foremost is the Holy Spirit that works within the universal church to restrain evil.  And the second is the common grace that is given to man in being created in his image that has yet to be completely corrupted by the fall.  It does mean some very chilling things. One of which is that when it comes to deciding where and what we should put our weight on as we walk through the quicksand of busyness, we have to remember an obvious reality that we often forget. The Prince of this World sets the agenda for this world. 

This is problematic. As I have learned from business, one of the most important things involved in a meeting, a negotiation, or a conference is the agenda. If what is critical to us isn’t even on the agenda or hidden away is some insignificant part, then it is going to be pretty hard to almost impossible for us to accomplish what we want. We wake up each morning in the world with an agenda already set for us.    

As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and the ones who should realize the dead end direction of this agenda, we have been given the job to change it.  In fact, we must do everything in our power to disrupt it.  One of the best ways we can change this is by how we allocate our time.  You have heard the saying you can always make more money but you can never make more time. Two area’s we often give lip service to but fail to dedicate actual time to as believers are prayer and study of God’s Word. Our enemy loves it when we ignore these and replace them with busyness.

Prayer & Word

Jesus is emphatic on his call to us to pray, but we are often hesitant to dedicate too much time to it. Why would we want to give up our precious time to pray when prayer doesn’t appear to be doing much of anything at all.  We have a lot to do. But when it comes to breaking up the agenda of the Prince of this World, who is the gold standard? It is Jesus. And Jesus, who is arguably the most important and busiest person in history, took time to pray because he believed it mattered and it mattered immensely. He gave us a pattern to pray in the Lord’s prayer found in both the book of Matthew and Luke. Prayer has many extremely valuable benefits we don’t have time to go into here, but we should do it even if it had no benefits simply because Jesus asked us to. 

And the second is spending time in the Word of God reading, listening, studying, and meditating on it. The Prince of this World would like nothing more than for us to be busy bees working in the wrong garden, with our own assumptions and feelings, with our focus elsewhere besides on God. One of the best ways to do this is to keep us away from the real Bible because knowing and understanding it, and being constantly reminded of what the Bible says, keeps us focused where God wants us.  It connects us to a vast and great eternal reality that is often counter intuitive as we do what we need to do in life for ourselves and others. If we want to change he world, we need to change the Prince of this World’s agenda beginning with how we allocate our time. 

Doug

The words of British poet Robert Abrahams say it well, “For some men die by shrapnel, And some go down in flames, But most men perish inch by inch, In play at little games.”  Our goal is to identify the little games and put a stop to them and put the right weight on the right things.