Do you remember life without Christ?
Well, I do.
I remember a constant void, an unexplainable emptiness nagging at me that would push me to stay as busy as possible to forget it was there. To go after career, money, and pleasure in search of contentment. Of course those never fulfilled me in any way, and after any achievement, I quickly moved on to the next, as if that might finally satisfy the void. When I truly discovered Christ, His unconditional redemptive love that satisfies the void that could only be filled by Him, I realized the chains I had been living with.
Every Christmas, I would hear the story of Jesus, and thought it was a perfect little religious tale to keep families feeling warm and cozy. In reality, the story of Christmas is the most important story in history, but we don’t always accept it, as I hadn’t for years. Inspired by how I felt about life before I committed to life in Christ, I created a short film entitled The Gift.
The Gift is a metaphoric story that illustrates the bondage of sin and the key to freedom. The story takes place in a mansion where the inhabitants have everything the world could offer: food, comfort, wealth, ambition and pleasure. But besides all they could want, they also have large iron shackles fastened to their wrists. They have never set foot outside the mansion, so they don’t really know what freedom is like.
Gifts arrive, addressed to each of them—each is a key to remove the shackles, so that they can leave the mansion and live in freedom. But instead of jumping at the chance, they come up with a variety of excuses as to why they should just stay where they are and not risk freedom. A young man argues that wealth is almost within his grasp, while a young girl proclaims that it isn’t that simple to just accept the gift freely. All the time, a 5-year-old boy listens to their excuses—and the end isn’t what you would expect. It leaves several members of the household (and the audience) shocked and curious about what might happen next.
This Christmas, thousands of churches will be full of people who have heard the Christmas story ten times over but have never really committed their lives to Jesus. The Gift speaks to them what it feels like to be one of those people as I was, ignoring the chains, pretending that my next ambition would satisfy me instead of accepting the free gift—the Key—offered to me (and them) by my Father in Heaven: Jesus.
How could you use this in your church this season?
AMAZING! So inpiring.