Why don't people just take the gift?

Yesterday morning we had our annual children's Christmas program at our home church.  My wife and I have been in charge of the program since we came on staff in 2005.  I was encouraged as I listened to our church kids sing about the birth of our Lord, reminding us of the true reason for Christmas.  Then last night we had our church Christmas play called, "Christmas on the Air."  As I watched the play, my heart was convicted as we came to realize the reasons people don't accept the gift of our Savior: busy-ness and skepticism.

As I'm sure nearly all of us understand, our lives have gotten entirely too busy.  We run around constantly to satisfy all the things of this life that make demands on our time,  and so often don't take time for the little things.  Doctors' appointments, meetings, our kids’ sports practices, all these things consume our time and make us all the more busy.  In the end, what do we have to show for it?  Also, technology is great, but it has drastically increased the speed at which we operate and has created many more demands on our time.  When I was growing us we had or small-town newspaper delivered to our home every evening.  Now, we have access to thousands of newspapers online every day.  If you're a news junkie like me, that doesn't mean you to have take the time to read them all!  I have had to remind myself many times over the last few days, "step back from the computer, enough news, spend time with your family.”  Also think about this, not so long ago if you wanted to write to someone, you had to sit down, write a letter by hand, and send it by "snail mail."  Now you sit down and just jot out a quick note by email.  That, in itself, is not bad.  The downside is that your Aunt Millie sits down at her computer and forwards you 25 emails of dogs barking Christmas carols, the dumbest church signs of 2009, and miscellaneous chain letters.  Just because they are in your inbox doesn't mean you have to read them, but we feel bad if we don't.  We have just made ourselves busier by putting yet another demand on our time.  (This doesn't even begin to take into account other things like Twitter, Facebook, and online games.) 

As you can see, it is so easy to become too busy.  The sad part is that, as a result, people are just too busy to sit down and consider their eternity and what the Lord has done for them.  They think they can keep putting the decision off because they have all of these other “demands” on their time.  But we all know that none of us are guaranteed tomorrow (Proverbs 27:1).  Our life is but a vapor, here only for a little while (James 4:14).  We must make time for the truly important decision of life, or we will be eternally regretful.  For those of us who have accepted Christ as our Saviour, let us have compassion upon those who are so busy that they let a decision of eternal significance pass them by.   Pray for them, witness to them, and plead with them.

Furthermore, let us all resolve to make an attempt to not be so busy that the important things of this world pass us by.   Sometimes we have to cast off the things that make demands on our time, and get back to that which is important: spending time with the Lord, and spending time with our loved ones.

Tomorrow we’ll look at skepticism.