Great Gifts From God

Amidst the joy of Christmas there is also sadness. Christmas so often doesn’t live up to its billing. So often, Christmas never meets our expectations. However, this Christmas can be your best Christmas, regardless of your circumstances.

It makes no difference whether you are rich or poor, single or married, or whether you are sick or well. It makes no difference whether you will be with people or whether you won’t, whether things are going well or whether you are struggling. It makes no difference whether you get tangible presents or whether you don’t.

This Christmas can outshine all the other ones put together. Here is how this Christmas can be your best. This Christmas, on Christmas day, I want you to go to God’s Christmas tree. God’s Christmas tree is in a special place deep in your spirit. If you pray about it, think about it, and meditate on it, He will show you where to find His Christmas tree within you. The tree is loaded down with presents, and they are all for you. In addition, these presents are wrapped in the most amazing ways. However, there is a slight problem. The problem is that these presents are invisible and there are invisible strings attached to every one. One of the strings attached to each of these presents is that you can’t just unwrap one present and leave the rest. Once you get started unwrapping, you will want to unwrap all of the presents on the tree.

Buried in this problem of the strings attached is an advantage to you. There is an opportunity for you. The advantage and the opportunity is that although these presents are invisible and you cannot hold them in your hands, you can hold them in your heart.

These presents will not have to be returned. They always fit....are always the right size. These presents are just what you need and are packaged in just the right way.

Let’s open the first package. As we open it. We find it is a personal gift to you with a note inside. The note says, "I Love You. Just so you will know, please see John 3:16. Signed, God.

John 3:16 says "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (NIV)

The gift of love is a life changing gift. Once you receive love in your heart your life changes for the better in many ways.

Other people need your new gift of love too. You may not know it, but a lot of people desperately want to be loved by you, and they want to know God loves them, but they just can’t bring themselves to open the this gift. They can’t open this gift of love. They can’t or don’t want to let the love of God through Christ into their lives because they are afraid of losing. They are afraid of losing the life they have now, losing their place in the world, losing their possessions, even losing their minds (seriously, many people think a love-based profound faith in God results in the losing of their minds). You name it, and people are afraid of losing it. To open this present of love you must not be afraid of losing. You must not be afraid to take a chance. You must have courage. Even people who accept Christ as their Savior sometimes have trouble opening this gift of love.

When you think about it logically. This is crazy. This is stupid. This is silly. Look at it this way, if you got a brand new car for Christmas, even if you didn’t drive, wouldn’t you at least take the wrapping paper off of it and look at it? Wouldn’t you at least open the door and sit inside of it?

Wouldn’t you absorb a little bit of it? Your first gift is Love from God and He isn’t going to take anything away from you. Instead, He is going to add to your life. He is going to add to your happiness......regardless of your situation. He will pour out His blessings upon you because when God gives you something and you receive it, He keeps on giving as long as you need Him and want Him. However, with God, there is always a string attached.

There is always some little thing that holds people back because they know there is a string attached. There is always a string attached to Gods presents, but there is always a good reason why there is a string attached.

Here’s another string attached when you open Jesus’ love present. You have to pass this love present on. You are not supposed to keep it only to yourself or for yourself.

Here are Jesus actual words about this first present: John 13:34 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (NIV)

Jesus said these words just before He went to the cross. It was His final command. It may have been His most important command. We do, to some extent follow His command at Christmas. What Jesus is asking you to do is not difficult. Passing along His gift of love is not hard to do. It may take work to get to a place in your life where you can love another person, but like every gift God asks you to give away, it multiplies. The more you give love away, the more it multiplies. As you give love away, there are untold rewards for you.

No one is exempt from giving away love. No matter what our lot in life is. No matter what our problems, or difficulties might be. Each of us can love others. In your life, there are people next to you right now who are desperate to know that someone loves them and cares about them. Their lives are full of pain because they can not or will not open this gift. Your first gift is God’s love for you.

Let us go to the next present. This one is a great one. It is a "one of a kind" present that you cannot get anywhere else. When we look inside the little box there is a note that says "Eternity". This gift is the gift of hope. It is a gift of a future. Let’s be honest. In many ways a lot of people, maybe you, have a lousy present life. We are besieged on all sides by problems, difficulties, and obstacles. When you have fought a lot of battles, you don’t really want to look forward to fighting more of them in the future. When you are young and healthy you have a very short past. If you are 17 years old you only have 17 years behind you. When you are young you can look into the future and you can almost see forever. However, if you are 67 years old, you have 67 years behind you and you can’t see forever any more. In fact, when you are 67, you think maybe you might even be able to see ....the end. When you open this second gift of hope and a future on Christmas day, and you hold it up to the Light you turn into a youngster.

If you are a young person you can see you are never going to change. No matter what age we are, we who believe Christ died for us, have a hope and a future. We have a hope for heaven. We have a hope that goes beyond our present pain, difficulties, and darkness. We can see into eternity. We can see paradise waiting. We can see forever.

Jesus gives us a picture of our future...

John 14:2: In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also. (NIV)

In Matthew, Jesus gives us another present of hope and a future.

Matthew 19:16 Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life? Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments." "Which ones?" the man inquired. Jesus replied, " `Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother, and `love your neighbor as yourself.’" "All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?" Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (NIV)

This story is not just about money. It is about your future. It says to you there is a great future ahead if you want it. However, there is always a string attached. There is always something we have to do or be when we receive our presents from God. Jesus didn’t say we shouldn’t be rich. What he was saying was that being arrogant and thinking we can buy our way into eternal life or working our way into eternity is not the way it is.

In this gift of a future and a hope for a great future life is a gift within a gift.

The gift within a gift is called grace. Grace is that unmerited favor or gift from God given to each of us that we receive because Christ died for us. Grace is a gift we do not deserve, but a gift God gives us whether we deserve it or not.

We have a third gift to open. We open the box and look inside. Inside the box we find a little note that says. "You are free and clear. No bills or debts to pay…ever. All the mistakes you have ever made have been permanently erased. All the failures are erased. All the shortcomings are gone."

This gift is the gift of Forgiveness. This gift is an act of God, a gift from God to you. This gift means God has no record and no memory of the times when you have said or thought or done something you should not have said or thought or done. With this gift, God has erased all the bad things you have said, thought, or done. All the words, thoughts, or deeds in your life you might want to take back do not exist in God’s memory. As human beings we are beset by failings. All of us fail miserably, a lot of the time. However, in God’s love, He is not only willing to look past all these mistakes, but to erase them. In the Lord’s prayer we ask for forgiveness.

Matthew 6:12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. (NIV)

Jesus went on to say:
Matthew 6:14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (NIV)

Now here is another string attached. Always a string attached to every present. To receive the forgiveness gift we have to be willing to forgive others. Actually, what I have been calling a "string attached" is God’s need for us to be responsible, to be grown up, to be mature.

A man tells a story about his brother and a hat. "My brother, at about 4 years old, wore a Mickey Mouse hat while sitting on the front row at a Huntington Beach festival. Dad told him to take it off but he wouldn't and instead, just shook his head back and forth. All anyone could see in the back was the ears going back and forth, since just his hat showed over the seat. Dad was really mad now. All the way home, Chuck put his arms around mom and dad and mom asked what he was doing: 'Making friends,' was his response. "

Chuck did wrong and sought to be friends with his father; we do wrong and the Father seeks to be friends with us.

Yogi Bera had a tortured way of telling truths. Yogi said, "I don’t want to make the wrong mistake."

Not long before she died in 1988, in a moment of surprising candor in television, Marghanita Laski, one of our best-known secular humanists and novelists, said, "What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness; I have nobody to forgive me."

This Christmas, when you open your gift box of forgiveness you will find all your debts are paid. All the debts that really count are gone.

We have yet another gift to open.

Our next gift to open also has a little note in it. The little note says "Believe, and be healed." Your next gift is the gift of healing.

Isaiah 53:5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. (NIV)

Throughout the New Testament, the Suffering Servant described here, is understood to be Jesus. This astounding verse claims that his wounds heal us. Sometimes we receive from Christ a physical healing but sometimes we don’t. What the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit want for you is that your life, your heart, your spirit, you soul would be healed. This is why, Peter explained that: when Jesus died on the cross, his suffering and death "healed" us of our sins, enabling us to live so we could always live to try and do the right thing (or righteousness ) (1 Peter 2:24).

1Pe:2:24: Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree,that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness:by whose stripes you were healed. (NIV)

All of us have wounds. Many of us have wounds that were put upon us by others. Some of us have wounds, illnesses, sicknesses, or conditions we were born with or born into. Sometimes, for some of us, the "joy" of Christmas is a mockery. Regardless of how we got our wounds, we can find in Christ, a healing touch. There are a lot of wounds that stay with people their whole lives. However, be assured that there is no wound that Christ’s love cannot heal. Today, doctors help us heal our bodies. Medicine can, in a lot of cases, do what would have been a miracle 20 years ago. However, there are some areas of the heart, of life, and of the soul where medicine cannot go. It is these areas where God wants us to accept his many gifts for us.

If other people have hurt you, you may not forget about the wounding, but the pain can go away. When the healing comes you are called on to forgive.

This does not mean we lay down and let evil and darkness run over us. Sometimes we have to stand up for what is right.

Some of us will wait until we see Jesus face to face to get our physical healing, but on that day, all our memories of our pain will vanish. When we see Jesus face to face all pain will be gone. All cares will disappear. There will be no more hurt. No more pain.

Jesus stands at the door of your life and knocks. To be healed, to fully receive this gift from Christ, you must open the door, unwrap this gift and let Him touch you.

The whole giving tradition at Christmas needs to go on all year round because Christ needs you to keep it going. His whole ministry was about giving and He needs you to be giving every day of your life.

In Matthew 4:23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them. (NIV