or wait... do I have my dates wrong?
food for thought..
Here i am, back in Korea. Christmas this year has been quiet. I don't know about you guys, but we don't really have much of a Christmas celebration: after moving around different continents and adjusting to their culture, I guess you lose a little of your own. Heck, we didn't even get around to getting a Christmas tree! But it got me thinking. Christmas is indeed a special day, a day to be commemorated, not forgotten. Celebrated, not ignored. It is a day where we remember the ultimate sacrifice made for us. Yet, what do we do with the great gift, the greatest present given to us? We have been given Life Everlasting.
I went with a youth group for an hour to a subway station to sing carols and hand out candy canes with a gospel message attached. To tell you the truth, it was harder for me to stop a stranger in the street, say Merry Christmas and to offer them a candy cane and explain the story behind it, than it was for the junior highers. Matthew 18:3-4 struck me: "unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." I have assurance of salvation in my Savior. but there are a million other people out there that have assurance of damnation. (10 million in Seoul, actually.) Yes, it is weird to be one of those people that stand at the public transit stations and hand out tracts, and frankly, I don't like those people, being all pushy and stuffing flyers or tracts in my face. But do we truly have a love for the lost, if we brush shoulders with them every day on the bus and in elevators, if we do not pray for them? Our Savior came to earth as a helpless baby, lived and died, all so that we might have eternal life. It is our commission to not be complacently sitting on our hands and enjoying all that our Lord has done for us. It is our calling to be active in the battle for lost souls: especially this Christmas season, let us pray that the eyes of the people around us will be opened to their final destination.
Thanks for the 'exhortation,' Paul. I think it was much-needed. I've been reading Operation World a lot this Christmas break. It's funny to realise that so often we will think about and pray for lost people in other countries, but forget about the ones in our own neighborhoods that we could be building relationships with. Thanks for the reminder to pray for and pursue lost people.
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