Gifts, Gifts, Gifts
Are gifts on your mind right now? We’re in a calendar season of gift giving. It’s what everyone is doing. In my home, my wife has dozens of people she is thoughtfully and lovingly considering gifts for. I don’t know how she does it; I have just one to focus on: her. I marvel at her ability throughout the year to pay attention to people and consider unique, meaningful, and practical gifts for so many. What makes me praise God when I watch her prepare gifts is I also know why she does what she does. As Christians, gift giving to one another is motivated by something far deeper than mere traditions and holidays.
Look at how Ephesians 5 begins, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
Did you catch the gift in this verse and the motivation for our giving? The way we give to one another is imitated after and motivated by the love shown to us in Christ’s gift, that is, Himself. In fact, apart from God in Christ revealing this love, we would not know what love is, let alone be transformed by it. I know you probably hear this statement every year: gifts are nice, but Jesus is the greatest gift. Well, I’m going to repeat it again, because we cannot hear it enough. Jesus IS the greatest gift!! We all, even those who know the Scriptures well, have not even begun to grasp the magnitude of what He has done for us.
As a simple exercise, let’s consider just some of the aspects of Christ’s gift to us:
In giving himself He spent the most by shedding His precious blood of infinite worth (1 Peter 1:9); He gave the most needed gift, forgiveness, by becoming a perfect propitiation for our sins (1 John 1:9, 4:10); He gave the most helpful gift, permanent dwelling of His Holy Spirit (John 15:26); He gave the most lasting gift, eternal life (John 3:15-36); He gave the most fulfilling gift; everlasting joy (Psalm 16:11); He gave the most hospitable gift, inviting unworthy sinners to His heavenly banquet (Luke 14:16-24); He gave us the most transforming gift, spiritual death to spiritual life (Colossians 1:13-14) and the promise of our bodies going from corruption to incorruptible (1 Corinthians 15: 52-55); He gave the most unconditional gift, salvation requiring no merit of our own (Ephesians 2:1-10); He gave the most honorable gift, the righteous for the unrighteous (1 Peter 3:18), He gave us the best news orphans could hear: you’re adopted, chosen, predestined (Ephesians 1:4-5). The list could go on forever.
In the one gift of Himself is found every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3). WOW! How is it that God would freely lavish upon sinners such grace! We serve a God who knows precisely what we need and was willing to freely give Himself for us, as the greatest gift, to all who would receive Him.
When we set our minds upon our Savior, reflecting on who He is and what He has done according to all that His Word teaches, we are by result transformed by His love and therefore motivated to walk as imitators of Him, walking in this same love towards one another. And as those who have received these great and precious promises in and through Christ, we are likewise becoming better gift givers like our God. In some way every gift we give to one another, whether wrapped in a box or through various acts of love, as His beloved children, ought to be an imitation of and motivated by an overflow of the love of Christ Jesus shown to us, where each act of love works to point others to His one gift.
May who our Savior is and what He has done be ever always renewing our minds and, may He by His Spirit, conform us more and more into His image each day.
…Now back to the wrapping paper and tape.
Because of Christ,
Pastor Paul
Look at how Ephesians 5 begins, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
Did you catch the gift in this verse and the motivation for our giving? The way we give to one another is imitated after and motivated by the love shown to us in Christ’s gift, that is, Himself. In fact, apart from God in Christ revealing this love, we would not know what love is, let alone be transformed by it. I know you probably hear this statement every year: gifts are nice, but Jesus is the greatest gift. Well, I’m going to repeat it again, because we cannot hear it enough. Jesus IS the greatest gift!! We all, even those who know the Scriptures well, have not even begun to grasp the magnitude of what He has done for us.
As a simple exercise, let’s consider just some of the aspects of Christ’s gift to us:
In giving himself He spent the most by shedding His precious blood of infinite worth (1 Peter 1:9); He gave the most needed gift, forgiveness, by becoming a perfect propitiation for our sins (1 John 1:9, 4:10); He gave the most helpful gift, permanent dwelling of His Holy Spirit (John 15:26); He gave the most lasting gift, eternal life (John 3:15-36); He gave the most fulfilling gift; everlasting joy (Psalm 16:11); He gave the most hospitable gift, inviting unworthy sinners to His heavenly banquet (Luke 14:16-24); He gave us the most transforming gift, spiritual death to spiritual life (Colossians 1:13-14) and the promise of our bodies going from corruption to incorruptible (1 Corinthians 15: 52-55); He gave the most unconditional gift, salvation requiring no merit of our own (Ephesians 2:1-10); He gave the most honorable gift, the righteous for the unrighteous (1 Peter 3:18), He gave us the best news orphans could hear: you’re adopted, chosen, predestined (Ephesians 1:4-5). The list could go on forever.
In the one gift of Himself is found every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3). WOW! How is it that God would freely lavish upon sinners such grace! We serve a God who knows precisely what we need and was willing to freely give Himself for us, as the greatest gift, to all who would receive Him.
When we set our minds upon our Savior, reflecting on who He is and what He has done according to all that His Word teaches, we are by result transformed by His love and therefore motivated to walk as imitators of Him, walking in this same love towards one another. And as those who have received these great and precious promises in and through Christ, we are likewise becoming better gift givers like our God. In some way every gift we give to one another, whether wrapped in a box or through various acts of love, as His beloved children, ought to be an imitation of and motivated by an overflow of the love of Christ Jesus shown to us, where each act of love works to point others to His one gift.
May who our Savior is and what He has done be ever always renewing our minds and, may He by His Spirit, conform us more and more into His image each day.
…Now back to the wrapping paper and tape.
Because of Christ,
Pastor Paul
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