Mike Edmisten Follower of Jesus. Husband of Nicki. Father of Ryan & Brock. Communicator of the Word.

Excuse #2 – I don't have time.

I'll let Charles Spurgeon, popular preacher in the late 19th century, answer this excuse.

"If you have not the time, God gave it to you, and you must have misspent it."

We all have the same amount of time.  We all have 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, and seven days in a week.  All of us. No one gets eight days a week (I'll wait while you sing the old Beatles' tune in your head).  God gives us all the exact same amount of time.

What makes us all different is our choices.  We all get the same amount of time, but we choose to fill it differently. And if you haven't left time in your schedule for the most important things, your schedule needs to change.

"I don't have time to read my Bible." Do you have time to read the latest book in the Twilight series? Or the latest work from John Grisham or Clive Cussler?  Nothing wrong with reading other books…so long as you make time first and foremost for God's book. If not, then time isn't your problem.  Your priorities are your problem.

"I don't have time to serve." How many TV shows do you watch in a given week? How many movies? Nothing wrong with taking time to decompress and relax, but if you are not serving, you are missing the whole point of following Jesus. Again, your problem isn't with time.  It is misappropriated priorities.

"I don't have time to __________________." This list could go on endlessly.  Go ahead and fill in the blank with your excuse.

The bottom line is that relationships take time.  A friendship takes time.  A parenting relationship takes time.  A marriage takes time. A relationship with Jesus takes time. If you are not willing to give your time to a relationship, then you simply don't have a relationship at all.

Now, I've seen a ton of churches that abuse peoples' time. If you look at their church calendar, it is crammed full. Front to back. Stem to stern. It is jam packed.

We don't do that at ACC.  We understand how busy and crazy life can be.  And we don't want to simply add busyness. Busyness does not equate to effectiveness.  We want to strategically plan our calendar to have maximum impact.  In many ways, less is more.

But that doesn't mean that we don't ask for your time.  We most certainly do. We ask for your time every Sunday.  We ask for your time to be in a small group.  We ask for your time to serve and do ministry.

We don't just plan events for the sake of having events. If you're like me, you get very, very frustrated when you feel like your precious time has been wasted.

Everything we do has purpose.  When we ask for your time, you can be certain that it is worth your time.

Just don't say that you don't have time.