The Ultimate Christmas Gift part 3
[audio:xmasgift3.mp3|titles=The Ultimate Christmas Gift part 2|artists=Christian St John]
In my last Faithblog I began to look at the ultimate Christmas gift and how we can measure this gifts worth?
Today I want to say that a good gift can be measured by its cost, therefore God’s gift to us is to be measured by its COST.
People love costly gifts, because there is a belief that the more expensive the gift, the better it is. Not only that, but an expensive gift can mean that the person giving it thinks you’re worth the cost and expense of obtaining the gift in the first place.
You want a costly gift this Christmas? Listen to this description of the ultimate Christmas gift in Philippians 6: 2-8…
“Christ himself was like God in everything. But he did not think that being equal with God was something to be used for his own benefit. But he gave up his place with God and made himself nothing. He was born as a man and became like a servant. And when he was living as a man, he humbled himself and was fully obedient to God, even when that caused his death—death on a cross.” (NCV)
You want a costly, valuable gift? There is no costlier gift than the Fathers gift of his son.
A story is told of a Father who in a sinking boat is faced with saving his son or his son’s friend. He only has one life jacket and knows without a doubt that the freezing, raging waters around them would overpower anyone without a flotation vest. He then remembered that his son was a Christian who loved Jesus and his son’s friend was not. He knew where his son would go if he died, but he wasn’t sure about his son’s friend, so he wasted no more time and threw the life jacket to his son’s friend in the hopes that he would be saved not only in this life, but also in the next.
There’s no doubt about it… God’s gift to us is the most costly gift we will ever be given. When the debt for sin was called in, God the Father chose to give us the gift of life and freedom. God chose to save us through the life of his own Son.
Unfortunately, many people live as though the gift means nothing to them. You see God’s gift is free… it costs us nothing. But it did cost the father. T. Paine wrote… “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly – It is dearness only that gives everything its value.”
God has given us the most precious gift He could possibly give – something of worth – something of intrinsic value – something that is one in a kind. He gave us His son. 1 John 4:10 tells us that, “This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice…”
God knew what had to be done. He knew what price had to be paid. He knew what it was going to cost him, and yet, he didn’t send us a second rate gift, He spared no expense and sent us the best gift. He sent his son, Jesus Christ, born as a child for the salvation of the world.
Join me next time as I continue looking at how we are to measure God’s ultimate Christmas gift.
Christian St John M.Div, BChM, ACS
December, 2008
Picture by Nicolas Raymond
