The Gift II
Last time we looked at The Gift from the recipient point of view. Let’s change up a bit and look at it from the gift giver.
Just as adults and children have different outlooks on receiving gifts, there is a different perspective on giving gifts. God the Father is the perfect gift giver. Everything that he created, he has given to us. [See Genesis 1 + 2] After the Fall [Genesis 3] the greatest gift the Father gave us came at Christmas: Jesus.
For God so loved that He gave… (John 3:16) Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift. (2 Corinthians 9:15)
Gifts have a cost; love has a cost. For the gift of Christmas, the cost becomes due and is paid on Good Friday. Jesus has taken my sin, my guilt, my death to the cross.
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20John%204:9-11&version=ESV>
[Try a deep dive on “propitiation” here]
Gifts have a cost; love has a cost. Gifts demand a response; love demands a response. As we journey through Holy Week remember the gift, remember the gift giver, remember the cost of the gift, (something you would never be able to pay). What is your response to the gift, the giver, the cost?
Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+12&version=ESV>
In the Great Exchange Christ has taken my sin, my guilt, my death to the cross: he takes all my nastiness into himself and paid for it with his sacrifice and death and has given me, well, that is the gift of Easter and we wait…
Trust the Promises,
Steve Skiver