The Gift Of Time

Illus: Remember, in this country there was a time they had gas war among the gas stations.

During those days many years ago we could buy gas 29 cents a gallon and the service station owner came out and pumped the gas for us. You could fill your car up for five dollars.

But when OPEC got involved and got in control of the gas supply they began withholding their supply of gas and the price of gas sky rocketed!!!

SUUPLY AND DEMAND drove the price of gas in some parts of the country to almost four dollars a gallon.

? It was then when we no longer got our gas from just any gas station, we started looking who sold it the cheapest.

? It was then we did not just get into our cars and drove all over town, we started planning our and combing trips to save gas.

WHY? Because when it became a shortage we began to realize how valuable gas was.

However, Many in life place no value on time whatsoever!!!

? Someone said, How do we value ONE YEAR? Ask a student who failed a grade.

? How do we value ONE MONTH? Ask a Mother whose baby arrived prematurely.

? How do we value ONE WEEK? Ask the Editor of a weekly newspapers.

? How do we value ONE HOUR? Ask someone who lies terminally ill waiting for a loved one who is late.

? How do we value ONE MINUTE? Ask someone who missed a plane, a train, a very important engagement.

? How do we value ONE SECOND? Ask and Olympic Gold Medalist, who lost the race by one second.

Time is something that is given to us by God and we should consider it to be valuable.

Someone has said, “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it is called the present!”

Time is a gift from God and we have to decide what are we going to do with these 365 days each year.

As Christians, we know immediately that if we are a child of God that loves the Lord, then out of that 365 days there will be fifty-two Sundays for worship that leaves us 313 days.

There will be fifty-two Tuesdays in which we attend Bible studies. That will give us 261 days remaining in this year, and we are going to have to decide what we are going to do with these days God give us.

The most foolish among us are those who live their lives with no plans to do something with the gift of time that God gives them.

Illus: They are like a ship’s Captain who is going to take a voyage but does not have the slightest idea where HE IS or WHERE HE IS GOING.

Illus: This saying was found on a Sundial.

“Haste traveler! The Sun is sinking now.

He shall return again--but never thou.”

This is so true. The sun will return to make that circle again, but we do not have the assurance that when it returns again, we will be here to see it.

We must seize this moment and take advantage of every precious day that God gives us.

Illus: If you had a bank that credited your account each morning with $86,000 that carried over no balance from day to day...Allowed you to keep no cash in your account, and every evening cancelled whatever part of the amount you failed to use during the day, what would you do? Draw out every cent every day, of course, and use it to your advantage! Well, you have such a bank, and its name is TIME! Every morning it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it rules off as lost whatever of this you failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balances, it allows no overdrafts. Each day it opens a new account with you. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against tomorrow.

Moses, in Psalm 90, gives us some things we should do with the time God gives us.

I. RECOGNIZE THE TIME GOD GIVES US

Look at verse 10, we read, “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”

Illus: Our lives are like the old wind up alarm clocks. We wind them up and it winds down!!!

We have people today who seem to think they are going to live forever. Some today whose lives reflect that they seem to think that death is 10, 20, or 30 years from now.