Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are You Wasting Time? | Historical Books | 2 Kings 20:1-11

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

What would you do with fifteen extra years? Are you offering God your best? Are you making the best use of your time? In today's episode, Tanya shares how 2 Kings 20:1-11 encourages us to spend whatever life we have left on God and his kingdom. If you're listening on Spotify, tell us about yourself and where you're listening from! Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 2 Kings 20:1-11

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmuth. Okay, I'm going to start this morning or afternoon, evening, whenever you're listening to this with a question. And I want you to think about it and give yourself an honest answer. If you knew that you were going to die and then God said, I'm going to give you 15 more years, how would you respond to God? How do you think you would respond to God? How would you spend that next 15 years of your life if you knew that every day was an extra gift, just a blessing that God had given you?

Would you spend it worshiping God? Would you spend it serving someone, serving God by doing something for someone else? Would you spend it in a different career? Would you spend it spending time with your family, more time with your family? How would you spend 15,000? extra years. There's a moment in the Lord of the Rings that captures a question we'll all eventually face. Frodo wishes his burden had never come to him, and Gandalf responds, all we have to decide is what to do with the time that has given us. In other words, we don't get to choose our story,

but we do choose how we live within it. Scripture gives us a real life example of this in Second King's 20. King Hesachia was told he was going to die. Overwhelmed, he turned his face to the the wall, it says he wept and he prayed, and God heard his cry and graciously extended his life by 15 years. In verse 6, the Lord says, I will add 15 years to your life, and I will rescue this city. I will defend this city for my own honor. I wish Hezekiah would have taken that part to heart. God was unmistakably generous with him. But what Hezekiah did with those added years is a tragedy, because instead of using them to honor the Lord, he used them to honor himself. When Babylonian envoys visited, he proudly showed them all his treasures,

blessings from God that he treated as trophies for his own glory. Hezekiah's story confronts us with a simple reality. Blessings are not rewards to display, but responsibilities to steward. The question then is, not how much have I been given, but what am I doing with what God is entrusted to me? What do my blessings reveal about my heart? Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1031, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do,

do it all for the glory of God. Our time, our relationships, our opportunities, our resources, our influence, each is designed to make his name great, not ours. So Scripture invites us to examine our lives. And we're going to look at that in two ways this morning or afternoon. First of all, our time. Am I offering God my best?

Ephesians 5 verses 15 and 16 say be very careful then how you live making the best use of the time. Paul doesn't say fit God in, fit service in, fit prayer in when your life slows down. He says make the best use of the time. Nobody just has time. We make time for what matters. Hezekiah had 15 extra years. Do you think he felt like they belonged to God? The way we spend our time impacts our spirits, our spiritual maturity, and it impacts the people around us.

We are responsible for the way we use our time. What about our words? We know that Hezekiah used his words to build up himself. Maybe it was even a humble brag, but he definitely pointed all of the glory back to himself with the things that God had given. Ephesians 429 says only what is helpful for building others up. Those are the words we should use. Our words are one of the clearest reflections of what is actually happening in our hearts. Like Hezekiah showing off his treasure rooms, our mouths can become a way of showing off our treasure, our achievements, our image, our pride.

With every conversation, be it in person or on social media, we face a choice. Will my words strengthen others? or will they spotlight myself? Will I use my voice to encourage others to restore? Will I use it to impress? Think back on your recent conversations. Have your words been serving God's mission, or have they been serving your ego?

The way we spend our time, the way we use our words are signposts. They reveal something about who the true king of our hearts is. Hezekiah had a heart problem, and so do we. But the good news of the gospel is that we have been given a better king. Where Hezekiah sought to preserve his life, Jesus laid down his life. Where Hasakaya used his blessings to build his own name, Jesus emptied himself for our salvation.

And now by His Spirit, the Holy Spirit teaches us a new way, the way of humility, the way of surrender, the way of gratitude, and the way of worship. We all fall at times. we will waste moments, we will speak foolish words. But our hope is not in a perfect track record. Our hope is in our perfect Savior. And because of him, our blessings don't have to make much of us. They can make much of him. Lord Jesus, thank you for every blessing you've given.

Teach us to honor you with our time and our words. Shape our hearts. Reorder our loves and help us steward every gift for your glory. Amen.