The Perfect Gift
When you give a gift at Christmas, for a birthday, or at any other time, you want to give something that the other person needs or will enjoy. You want to give something special that he or she doesn’t already have. So you think carefully, do some research, and pick what you hope will be the perfect gift.
The Today Show website provides a detailed holiday gift guide for any occasion, for any person, and for many interests. For instance, if you choose a Christmas gift for Mom, it recommends a Bamboo Bathtub Caddy Tray, a Mama Bear necklace, or a bottle of Domenica Fiore Extra Virgin Olive Oil, among other things. It assures you that your mother will really love these gifts and will really use them, too. (Would she?) If you choose a birthday gift for a child, the website recommends a Squoosh-O’s Galaxy D.I.Y. Stress Ball Kit, a KD Kids Rescue Runts Husky Plush Dog, or the New York Times Bestseller book called “The Mysterious Benedict Society,” by Trenton Lee Stewart. Are you convinced? Do these ideas sound like good recommendations? Are they the perfect gifts?
Though the gifts that the Today Show recommends may work for some people, none of these gifts compare to the gift that God has given to the world. His gift alone is the one and only perfect gift for at least four reasons. Do you know what this gift is? Have you received it as your own?
The most necessary gift
For a gift to be perfect it should be necessary; it should meet a need of some kind. Yet some gifts aren’t necessary at all. For example, who needs a jelly bean scented iPhone case or a chia pet? At the same time, other gifts are necessary because they meet real needs. Diapers for babies, new pants for growing boys, and a gift card to Target for Mom and Dad – though gifts like these meet real needs, they still do not qualify as the most necessary gift of all.
Every person shares a common need that is even more important than food or water. We all need a close relationship with God. You need a close relationship with God because he is the Ruler over everything. Psalm 97:9 says, “You, LORD, are most high above all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods.”
You need a close relationship with God because you have failed to reflect his glory. Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” This is a serious problem because reflecting the glory of God is the reason that he made you.
According to Genesis 1:26, “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.’” God made you to show his goodness and to demonstrate his love, to say what he would say and to do what he would do. However, you have failed to be this kind of person. You have said hurtful or dishonest words and you have done hurtful and unloving things to other people.
You need a close relationship with God because your failures to reflect the goodness of God have separated from him. Isaiah 59:2 says, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”
You need a close relationship with God because death will take you away from him forever. Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death.” Wages are something you earn, and death is what you earn because of your sin. Death is a concept that describes the way that everything decays and deteriorates over time, including the quality of your life in this world. This process culminates completely when you finally die.
Revelation 20:14 says, “Death and Hades [will be] cast into the Lake of Fire.” This teaches that at some point in the future, you will stand before God who will judge you for the life that you lived. Because you have sinned, you will ultimately go to a permanent place of punishment called the Lake of Fire. This terrible experience will go on forever, permanent separation from God your only destiny, with no hope for return.
You need a close relationship with God because you can do nothing to meet this need on your own. Isaiah 64:6 says, “We are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” When you do good things, the good things you do are no better than bandages removed from one bodily wound and placed onto another.
Just as moving a bandage from one wound to another is not a sanitary practice, good works do not heal your problem of sin. They make your problem worse instead because your sinfulness contaminates the good things you do. Your sins make you wither away like a leaf fallen from a tree and blown away into the distant horizon, never seen again. Do you need this gift from God?
The most expensive gift
Some gifts are very expensive. A diamond ring, a Ferrari, season tickets to your favorite stadium, or a piece of art by an acclaimed master artist will cost a fortune, but one gift is costlier than any other is. It is the gift of God. What is this gift? Ephesians 2:8 says, “By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” The gift of God is the kind of salvation that is “by grace through faith.”
In other words, this gift is the kind of salvation that God gives you and you receive. There is no way you can earn or deserve this gift. Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” You have earned death for yourself forever because of your sin, but God offers an alternative. He offers a gift that is more expensive than any other gift at all. This gift is eternal life and it cost the life of Jesus Christ the Lord.
Jesus is God, yet he is also a man. He will judge the world someday, yet he also lived a life like you and I do. As a human being, he never sinned, and he always said and did the right thing. Unlike you, he never once failed. He never fell short of the glory of God. He never failed to reveal the goodness and love of God through his thoughts, words and actions.
As the perfect, innocent and powerful Son of God, Jesus died a cruel death. He chose to become guilty for your sins and to die your death in your place. He lived the life that you must live, and he died the death that you must die, and he did this perfectly. There is no costlier gift than this.
Consider the story of John Griffin, who was the father of an 8-year-old boy during the 20’s and 30’s. John loved his son dearly. He was a normal little boy who frequently asked to go to work with his father. One day John granted his wish. John was bridge conductor on the Mississippi River who was responsible to raise the bridge for boats to go through and to lower the bridge so that trains could pass over. The gears and machinery at the bridge station fascinated his son. On that day, as John and his little boy ate lunch on the bank of the river, he realized that the Memphis Belle train, carrying 300 passengers, would be crossing the bridge in 3 minutes – but he hadn’t lowered the bridge. Leaving his son on the shore, he moved quickly up the stairs to pull the lever and lower the bridge for the train. Before he did this, he realized to his chagrin that his son had climbed up the bridge and had fallen between the gears. John could hear the train coming roaring down the track. He frantically considered ways to rescue his son and lower the bridge, but he knew he had to choose between both options. Knowing that the train carried 300 passengers, he chose to save their lives instead of his son. At the last moment, he turned his head and lowered the bridge just in time for the train to pass, crushing his son in the gears. As the train whizzed by in safety, John saw a man reading his newspaper, a woman drinking her tea, and another talking to his wife. No one realized that price that he had paid to meet their need.
Jesus did not come into this world only to do good things and to teach good things. He did not come only to show us an example of how to live or to give us good feelings at Christmastime. He came to do something far more serious and costly. He came to take your place in death. Every human death is a tragedy, but the death of Jesus Christ is the most tragic death of all because he died as a completely innocent and perfect person. He shed his blood, relinquished his life, and ruined his reputation for you.
No religion, no worldview, no other god, and no philosophy of life and existence offers you a gift like this – in which the judge takes your place and does everything necessary to take on the consequences for your sin and to give you his goodness instead. That is why Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). No other way can totally restore your relationship with God today and forever. Have you received this gift from God?
The most enduring gift
No matter what gifts you give or receive this Christmas, and no matter how expensive or durable those gifts may be, they will all come to an end someday (Matt 6:19-21). They will rust. The batteries will run out. They will break down, wear out or expire. Someone may steal them, they may lose their value, or they may grow obsolete over time.
There is one gift that never ends, and that is the gift of eternal life. Eternal life is God’s way of describing a new relationship with him. Jesus himself called this being “born again” (John 3:7). Have you been born again? The gift of eternal life is not something that God gives to you as the result of some good works that you do or some rules that you follow. It is something that he gives, just as he gives you physical life as a human being. All of life is a gift and you can do nothing to earn it.
You did not earn your right to be alive today, and you will cannot earn your right to a close relationship with God. That is why God calls eternal life a gift (Rom 6:23). You don’t earn a gift. You receive a gift that someone else has worked to provide for you. Jesus did the work. He lived the perfect life you need to live but can’t. He died the death that you deserve to die forever. He offers to hand over to you all that he has done in your place so that you can have a close relationship with God forever.
By doing this, God now offers to you the perfect righteousness of Christ. If you receive this gift from him, it is as though God will open the books of heaven and write beside the record of your personal record of sins, “Paid in Full.” He will zero out your account and you will have no more death to die. What’s more, he will write onto your record, “The Righteousness of Christ.” When God looks at you in judgment, he will see the goodness of Jesus and not the badness of your sin.
This gift of eternal life is more than a restored relationship with God — it is a restored relationship lasting forever. When you take this gift from God by faith, he places you as a beloved child into his spiritual family forever and he will never change his mind. Eternal life is a permanent gift that never ends and never wears out. It will never disappear, and it will never go away. Romans 8:38-39 says, “Neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Have you received this gift of eternal life?
The most unwanted gift
There is no other gift so necessary, there is no other gift so costly, and there is no other gift so enduring as the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ. Yet even so, there is no other gift so unwanted. Romans 3:11 says, “There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God.”
You would assume that no one would reject this gift from God. You would expect that everyone would want to receive it. After all, when Apple unveils a new iPhone or Nintendo releases a new game system, people line up outside, through the night, in frigid temperatures to get their hands on these things as soon as possible, even though these phones will fail to satisfy them in the end and will become obsolete over time. Sadly we do not respond to the gift of God this way. Instead, we respond like a young child who receives a crocheted sweater from Grandma at Christmas. We look at it for a second and throw it to the side, looking for something else more exciting.
Is God working in your heart? Is he pointing out the problem of your sin? Is he showing you that the good things you do are not good enough? Is he making you aware of your future moment before the throne of God for judgment? Is he warning you about your future death and separation from him forever?
If so, then you need to receive the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ alone. You need to take what he is offering. To receive an ordinary gift, you need to reach out your hands and open the wrapping. To receive this gift from God, you need to change your mind in two important ways.
First, you must turn away from everything you rely upon. Whether some other deity, religion, or belief system and whatever else you may be — you must forsake every one. You must admit that you are a sinner who does not have a real relationship with God whom God will condemn at the future judgment. To turn away from these things and to acknowledge your sinfulness is to repent. Will you change your mind like this today? Acts 16:30 says, “God … commands all men everywhere to repent.”
As you turn away from other beliefs and acknowledge your sin, you must turn towards Jesus alone as your God and Savior instead. It is not enough to believe in God (Jam 2:19). You must believe in Jesus as your God and Savior. This means that you will trust in him to remove your guilt for sin and you will receive the gift of his good standing before God as your own. Acts 16:31 says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” John 3:16 says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Romans 10:13 says, “Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Have you received this gift of eternal life from God? Have you changed your mind about other religious beliefs and the awfulness of your sin? Have you turned to Jesus Christ alone as your God and Savior? Have you received forgiveness from sins and eternal life forever in a close relationship with God? If you, you should do so today. This gift of God is more necessary, costly, and enduring than any other gift you will ever receive. Don’t let it go unopened.
Thomas Overmiller serves as pastor for Faith Baptist Church in Corona, NY and blogs at Shepherd Thoughts. This article first appeared at Shepherd Thoughts, used here with permission.