The Gift of God
My God is a giving God. He gave His Son, His Son gave us Living Water, His Son has given us the gift of salvation, and through the Lord Jesus we have the gift of eternal life.
The Gift of His Son
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16, NKJV)
When I see the Father publicly commending His Son by saying, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” and then sending Him to the cross where fellowship with the Father would be broken for three dark hours, I can scarcely comprehend the value of the gift that God has given. I know that in our day, we would think that love would have found a way to save the Lord from the cross. But our sins required a just punishment. Is it any wonder that God gets angry with those who do not understand what God gave in order to pay the penalty that we deserve because of our sin?
The Gift of the Holy Spirit
“Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”” (John 4:10, NKJV)
The Lord made it a point to meet an outcast at a well one noon in Samaria. She wanted to get water from a well but the Lord wanted to satisfy her with water from heaven. This poor woman must have done some thinking before meeting the Lord about how to please God because she knew the Jewish system of worship and she knew the Samaritan system of worship. She wondered who was right. The Lord told her clearly that ceremonies don’t satisfy but that He could. And she got satisfied with the water that saves that day, and then she shared that water with others.
The Gift of Salvation
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,” (Ephesians 2:8, NKJV)
The big question in many people’s minds is “What must I do to be saved?” The answer is nothing. But we can and should trust the Lord because He has already paid the price required to provide the offer of salvation as a free gift to everyone. The offer has been made, the price has been paid. Now all we have to do is believe God that Christ has done all that is necessary to satisfy the debt that we owed because of our sin. I find it interesting that many people who have received the “gift of God” freely still sing, “All to Him I owe.” Since the price has been paid and since salvation is a free gift, we do not owe anything. Owing is an obligation and not voluntary devotion. I understand the sentiment, but if Christ has made us a free gift, wouldn’t it be better to say “thank you” instead of trying to repay Him for what He has done?
The Gift of Eternal life
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23, NKJV)
What is eternal life? We can imagine and we can speculate but we probably won’t really understand eternal life until we experience it in eternity. Oh yes, eternal life begins the moment we trust Christ. It is a life with quality and with quantity. Some passages translate the original work as everlasting but that only describes the half of it. Eternal life looks backward and forward. It is a life in the Father’s house for the bride or the church. It is a life in New Jerusalem during the thousand year reign of Christ. It is a life that is going to be experienced for eternity after the millennium, but we are not told much about that expanse of time.
The really nice thing about eternal life is that it cannot be lost once obtained (after all it is eternal) and it will be spent with the Lord in heavenly bliss and not in eternal conscious punishment with the Devil.
Thank You
We give gifts to one another this time of year but the best gift has already been bought and paid for and is offered freely to us. I hope no one reading this has rejected the bestest, the mostest, the costliest, the most marvelous gift that we could possibly be offered. I hope we appreciate that gift enough to say “thank you.”
Bruce Collins
Meditation for the week of November 26 and December 3, 2023
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