The Perfect Gift

December 25, 2013

The Perfect Gift

Galatians 4: 1-7

John Grisham’s book Skipping Christmas is about a man who got tired of all the hoopla surrounding Christmas. He decided to skip all the decorations and celebrations, much to the consternation of his neighbors and friends.  His book reminds me of the man who got tired of all the frantic haste and commercialism associated with Christmas and decided not to go along with the crowd. As a part of his protest, he decided not to send Christmas cards.  For the first two weeks of December all went well, but as the mail brought him cards with greetings from friends and family he began to feel guilty about sending no cards. A few days before Christmas he could no longer stand being the odd man out. He rushed to the store and grabbed the only box of cards still on the shelf. He bought it, purchased stamps, went home and addressed cards frantically all evening. He addressed 49 cards. He had one card left over which he tossed on the table on his way to mail the cards. The next day it occurred to him that he had addressed and signed all those cards but had not actually read what the card said. So, he grabbed the left over card and took a look. This is what it said:

"This cheery card has come to say:

A gift from us is on the way."

Now comes the really frantic “have to” gift shopping. When we “have” to do something, the stress generally steals all of our creativity; when we “get” to do something, all of our creative energy is free to flow.

God did not “have to” create the world. The beauty, splendor and precision of the universe are evidence of God’s “get to” creativity. When the world became corrupted and lost to the power of sin, God did not “have to” redeem the world. He chose to do so, and God, with His creativity flowing through His “get to” decision, made the choice of the Perfect Gift.

“But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.  God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children” (Galatians 4: 4-5).

Many people have refused God’s gift because they thought what the world really needed was a strong military, or political leader. Perhaps they choose not to accept God’s gift because they are caught up in the thinking that all we need is more education, good government and good habits to save ourselves. God’s gift is so simple, yet so profound. He offers salvation to us one at a time, so that we can then become the people of God. As the people of God, with our lives transformed by God’s grace, we then become witnesses of God’s glory to the world and lead even more to receive God’s gift of life. Together we become co-laborers with Christ for the Kingdom of God. That I believe is the true hope of the world; but it is so simple that many people, caught up in their frantic lives, often do not see God’s Perfect Gift.

On this Christmas Day, let us offer our lives anew to God as our expression of thankfulness for His Perfect Gift, Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.