The Ultimate Gift

Over the next few days, as we celebrate Christmas with family and friends, we will have the opportunity to give and receive gifts.  If I have a gift under the tree for someone, but they never take it, open it, use it, or take it with them, they can’t truly say that it is theirs.  When a present is given to someone, it must be accepted and received before it belongs to the recipient.   In a way, that is a picture of God’s gift of salvation.  God offers each of us the gift of his son Jesus to be our Lord and Savior.  In turn, each person must individually accept God’s gift for that relationship to belong to them.  And the great thing is God’s gift of salvation isn’t just given at Christmas time, but any time someone wants to receive it.

Thank you, God, for giving us the very best gift of all…your Son Jesus…our Lord and Savior.  In gratitude, may our lives be a blessing to you and make a difference for your Kingdom as we celebrate and remember the Reason for the Season.

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.  Acts 4:12

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.

I John 4:9-15