Psalm 90: Making Every Day Count in Your Life

Introduction

"In the whole history of humanity, there will never be another October 4, 2026. This moment is historic and it will not happen again." Matthieu Perraud preached this message at Église Momentum with no theme announced in advance, right after a week of fasting and prayer and a weekend when all the church's sites gathered to take in what God is doing.

He begins with an observation: God is still doing great things today. The Brussels church is four years old and about 800 people attend it. The Paris church is two years old and gathers about 350 people. The place where he is preaching was built with about a hundred people, and more than 2,000 attend today. But he makes a second observation: time passes quickly.

The title of his message fits in one sentence: so that every day counts. Starting from Moses' prayer in Psalm 90 and Paul's call to redeem the time, he invites everyone to apply their heart to wisdom and to live with God's perspective.

Message Outline

1. Time Passes Quickly: Moses' Prayer

The preacher jokes that not so long ago, he had hair. More seriously, when he became a dad, brothers and sisters from the church would come and tell him, "Enjoy it, because time passes quickly." He thought it was "an old person's speech." A few years later, he is the one saying it to young parents.
Days have always had 24 hours, weeks seven days and years 52 weeks. Nothing has changed on that front.
What has changed is that there have never been so many time thieves: social media, movies, endless scrolling, replays.
Hence Moses' call in Psalm 90: "So teach us to count our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." The preacher invites everyone to say to their neighbor, "Every day counts."
We can trust Moses on this subject: the Bible describes him as a man more patient than anyone else on earth (Numbers 12:3).
For forty years, he led a people who went around in circles in the desert because of their disobedience and their unbelief about the promised land. If anyone had to tell himself that every day counts, it was him.
One way to make every day count, to apply your heart to wisdom, is to redeem the time.

2. Redeeming the Time Means Investing

Paul writes to the Ephesians: "Therefore watch carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil" (Ephesians 5:15-16). He places this call within the very concrete setting of family and fellowship relationships.
For a long time, this text pushed the preacher toward activism: "I must not waste my time, so I do, I do, I do." He clarifies that this is not at all the idea.
Redeeming the time literally means making the right transaction, turning every moment into an opportunity. First comes the idea of investment: when you are a dad or a mom, it means investing your time in your children's lives. In the church, it means investing in someone else's life.
Paul invested in Timothy's life, and Timothy followed his teaching, his conduct and his struggles closely (2 Timothy 3:10). Paul could not remain the pastor of Ephesus, but because he had invested in Timothy, he was able to put him at the head of that church. There is always an element of risk, but there is also a return on investment.
"If we are here, it is because there are people who invested their time": someone decided that, within their 24-hour day, it could be good to spend ten minutes telling you that Jesus can give you peace, forgive your sins and bring you out of your addictions.

3. Becoming the Leader of Your Time Again

Redeeming the time means becoming the leader of your time again. The question becomes: how do I manage the 24 hours that flow by each day in my life?
The preacher suggests an exercise to do at home: write on a sheet of paper what a typical day looks like. Your phone can also show how much time you spend on screens, "and it's scary."
During the Covid lockdown, everyone was saying, "Now that I have time, I'm baking bread, going jogging, playing board games with my kids." In reality, we had always had the time: days had not become three hours longer. Some things had simply stopped, offering the chance to become the leader of our time.
This is not about taking back control of your life: "Jesus is the one who has control over our life. He is the Lord." It is about taking back control of how you spend and invest your time.

4. Doing Good, Because the Days Are Evil

The expression "the days are evil" comes from the prophet Amos (Amos 5:13). There he denounces injustice in society, religious authorities who use the people instead of serving them, and injustice within families.
Amos calls people to seek good (Amos 5:14-15). When we do good around us, we redeem the time. This is why Paul immediately applies this call to relationships in the church and in families.
The preacher encourages us to list our 24 hours, to erase what does not really matter and to replace it with what really matters. He clarifies that he is speaking first to himself: he will hear his own message four times that day.
This was the heart of Jesus' message: "But seek first God's Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:33). When you invest your time in what is the heart of Jesus, you get a return on investment.
It will never be a waste of time to come to a Logos evening or to give two hours a week to a growth group to study the Bible and carry one another's burdens. The day you go through difficulties, you will not look to isolate yourself: that smaller family will pray and fight alongside you.

5. Seeing Your Life with God's Perspective

Moses writes in the same psalm: "For a thousand years in your sight are just like yesterday when it is past" (Psalm 90:4). Peter picks up this thought to encourage scattered and tested Christians: for the Lord, one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like one day (2 Peter 3:8).
We count God's response time in our 24-hour days, but he counts in eternity. What you have been waiting for over the years may be, in God's eternity, only a blink of an eye.
"We're not going to do math this morning, but we're going to do a little physics." Sitting on the train, you are motionless if the train is your frame of reference. For the cow watching it go by, you are traveling at 300 km/h (about 186 mph). It is the same person, but everything depends on the frame of reference.
In the human frame of reference, some situations have no solution, no way out and no hope. Placed in the divine frame of reference, the same situations open up options, opportunities and possible miracles.
Patience is a very variable thing. The same children who wait long minutes for a photo with Elsa from Frozen cannot wait three seconds for a piece of candy. We too forget that God is patient with us, but we become impatient as soon as the blessing does not fall right after the prayer.

6. Living in Expectation of Jesus' Return

"Jesus is coming back. The Bible says so. We do not know the day or the hour, we must be ready" (Matthew 24:36). The preacher smiles: "There, my eschatology course is over."
He has often been shown Jesus' return through disasters, or with the verse from Amos displayed above a pastor's desk: "prepare to meet your God" (Amos 4:12). But there is another reality: the good news of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, and then the end will come (Matthew 24:14). If Jesus has not yet returned, grace, forgiveness, restoration and healing are still possible.
In Acts 8, after Stephen's death, a great persecution scatters the church in Jerusalem. "Therefore those who were scattered abroad went around preaching the word" (Acts 8:4). They were not apostles, and we do not even know their names.
In John 21, a rumor spreads among the disciples that John will not die before Jesus returns. As long as John lived, that return seemed near, and the older he grew, the more the disciples hurried to proclaim the good news. In the earthly frame of reference, persecution remains persecution. In the divine frame of reference, it becomes evangelism: those who wanted to put out the fire spread it everywhere.
During Covid, the church could no longer gather, but that did not stop it from being the church. Circumstances can keep you from doing things, but they cannot keep you from being a light in the darkness. If your light has gone out, you can make this day count and begin to shine again.

7. The Spirit Poured Out and the Example of Jesus

At Pentecost, Peter takes up Joel's prophecy: "It will be in the last days, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams" (Acts 2:17). Yes, some things will become more complicated, but there have never been so many conversions and so many people touched by the Holy Spirit.
Right after "redeeming the time," Paul writes: "Don't be drunken with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18). There is a cause-and-effect link between redeeming the time, living with God's perspective and being continually filled with the Holy Spirit.
This perspective changes prayer: heaven becomes more real than earth, healing more real than sickness, deliverance more real than chains, the promise more real than the problem, the other shore more real than the storm.
The building where the church meets exists because people gave their Saturdays, their weeks and sometimes their vacation days to breathing in cement and plaster dust. It was not a waste of time.
Jesus was very intentional. Out of about 33 years of life, he had three years of ministry. He did not scatter himself: he invested in twelve people, with an element of risk, since one of them betrayed him. There is only one name by which we can be saved (Acts 4:12), and it is the name of Jesus.

Key Takeaways

Time has not changed, but time thieves have multiplied. Counting your days well is a call to wisdom.
Redeeming the time does not mean doing more and more: it means investing your time in what truly matters, starting with the lives of others.
Doing good and seeking first God's kingdom is redeeming the time. Time invested like this is never lost.
Everything depends on the frame of reference. In God's perspective, a situation with no way out becomes an opportunity.
Jesus is coming back. Until he does, grace is still possible and everyone can be a light, whatever the circumstances.

Personal Application

If you write your typical day on a sheet of paper, which things do not really matter and could be erased?
In whose life are you investing your time right now: your children, a brother or sister from church, a person who does not know Jesus?
Which situation in your life are you looking at only in the human frame of reference? What changes if you place it in God's perspective?
How is your patience with God when the answer to your prayer is slow in coming?
What can you do today so that this day truly counts, and so that there is a before and an after?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What does "redeeming the time" mean in Ephesians 5?

For Matthieu Perraud, it is not a call to activism or to wear yourself out doing more and more. Redeeming the time means making the right transaction: investing your time and turning every moment into an opportunity. It means becoming the leader of the time that flows by again, without taking back control of your life, which belongs to Jesus.

Why is Moses a good guide for learning to count our days well?

Moses prays Psalm 90: "So teach us to count our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." The Bible describes him as a man more patient than anyone else on earth, and for forty years he led a people who went around in circles in the desert. If anyone had to make sure every day counted, it was him.

What does God's perspective change in our lives?

Everything depends on the frame of reference. In the human frame of reference, a situation can seem to have no way out. Placed in the divine frame of reference, the same situation opens up options, solutions and possible miracles. For the first church, persecution thus became evangelism, because it lived in expectation of Jesus' return.