The Greatest Gift

​Christmas is here! After a season filled with festivity, lights, celebration, and joy, Christmas morning has finally dawned. For most, it is a time of merriment and good will as they gather around a lighted tree, exchanging gifts and sharing good food. However, this isn’t all that Christmas is about. It’s a time to remember and celebrate the greatest gift of all—Jesus!

At the beginning of December, our church’s teaching pastor kicked off his Christmas sermon series with a message on John 3:16. This all-familiar passage is easy to gloss over due to familiarity and seldom used for a Christmas message. But as our pastor was preaching, these timeless words hit me in a new way.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
~John 3:16-17

​God so loved that He gave. Let those works sink in and settle on your heart for a moment. In a culture that often views gift giving as more of an obligation rather than a selfless, unexpected offering void of any expectation to receive something in return, the truth of these words can easily lose their weight.
 
So let’s take a step back and remember that the true definition of giving is to give without expecting anything in return. Gifts are not meant to be forms of payment. We don’t give just because we’ve already received, but rather a gift ought to be freely given because the giver wants to bestow blessing upon the recipient. That is a true gift. And the greatest gift ever given was Jesus.
 
God so loved that He gave. It was a gift unmerited and unequalled. It was not sent because God owed us a favor, nor because mankind had attained some extraordinary level of goodness. On the contrary, humanity was undeserving of any good gift. Wrath and punishment were what our actions deserved. Yet because of the depth of His unconditional love, God gave a priceless gift—the gift of His One and Only Son.
 
He could have given us a prophet or divine revelation in the form of written words or miraculous signs, but rather He chose to give of Himself. He gave Jesus—God incarnate, the exact image and likeness of the Father—to earth as a sacrificial offering to save the world. It was a gift that cost everything of the Giver. And yet He gave because God so loved all the people of this world.
 
That is love! That is a gift to top all gifts! And that is the message of Christmas!
 
Because of love, God gave His Son, to be born as an infant and spend a lifetime on this broken planet, to be beaten and brutally murdered so that He might buy our redemption and give eternal life to all who will believe and put their faith in Him.
 
Out of love, God gave the greatest gift—Himself. Now it is time to decide whether we will receive this gift or not. God already did His part and gave. It is now our time to receive.
 
Therefore, let us receive by faith this matchless gift and celebrate the arrival of our Savior and ultimate manifestation of God’s endless love!
 
Merry Christmas!

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”
~Galatians 4:4-5