"Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God." Colossians 3:16

 We cannot serve one another in any of these ways without sharing our time. Time is perhaps the most precious commodity we have. We can replace money, goods, possessions and many other things, but once time is spent you can never get it back or replace it.

 Each one of us only has a limited number of years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds which we will live on the earth, and none of us know when our time will run out. So, to give of our time is one of the greatest acts of charity we can do.

We were created as mortal human beings but God has placed the desire for eternal life in our hearts, and has made it possible in Jesus. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. (Rom.6)  So, we find that God wants to share a precious gift with us, His eternal time and life.

 I once heard a story about a little boy who loved his father and wanted to spend more time with him but it seemed he was always busy working. One day the little boy asked his dad how much he earned per hour but his dad reacted angrily and told him that it was rude to ask such a question. The little boy really wanted to know so he asked his mother the next day and she told him that his dad makes $20 per hour.

 About a month later the little boy asked his dad if he would give him $10. His father assumed that he was wanting the money to buy a cheap toy and lectured him on the value of money. To teach his young son a lesson, the father decided to give him the $10 on the condition that he would not spend it on candy or for a toy.

 The little boy received it with joy and quickly ran to his piggy bank. He father was impressed and thought, -"What a wise son I am raising, seeing that he is quickly putting the $10 in his piggy bank for safe-keeping.! But to his surprise, the little boy opened his piggy bank and took another $10 bill that his grandmother had given to him on his birthday months earlier and added it to the money his dad had given to him. Immediately the father thought, -"What a foolish son I am raising, seeing that he is so quickly ready to spend all of his money."

 But then he was surprised when his little son happily ran to him and said, -"Here daddy! Here’s $20, can I please buy an hour of your time? Please daddy, I know you don’t have any free time but now I have enough money to pay you. Please, I love you and really want to spend some time with you."

 I’m sure this man thought that he was a good father to his son. He worked hard at his job to provide the many things the family needed to live comfortably. But his young son felt a desperate need for his daddy. Our families, our brethren and people in general need our time. As our text says, if we "Let the Word of Christ richly dwell"  in us, we will find time to serve one another"with thankfulness in our hearts to God."  Let us not get so busy that we cannot practice our faith by sharing some time with those who need it.