God’s True Gift of Love
The ultimate gift of God is the gift of
salvation. Once the presents under the Christmas tree are opened
and the excitement fades, eventually they will fail to satisfy, be forgotten, or
go out with the trash. Only one gift
will shine eternally, never grow dim, never fail to satisfy, never wear out and
that is the gift of a restored relationship with God.
Christmas is God’s answer to the universal brokenness of humankind, a brokenness which resulted in a shattered relationship with God. Human beings have fallen far from their
created purpose, that of being intimate companions with God and living in close
personal relationship with Him.
When sin came into the world through the conscious
decision of Adam to disobey God, humankind became victims of a spiritually
genetic disease called original sin.
This sin permeates every aspect of the human mind, body and soul,
causing every individual to live a life separated from God, focused only on his or
her own goals and objectives. Human beings were not intended to live this type
of singular existence. We were created
by God for companionship and worship. Because
of our inherited sin gene, we can neither
worship nor be companions without a complete spiritual heart transplant, “A new
heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out
of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26, Amplified).
Because God is a God of purity and holiness we
cannot stand in His presence as sin-filled creatures. Our sin must first be removed.
Only God, the great physician and surgeon can replace our broken, sinful, stony
hearts with a cleansed and regenerated heart for the Holy Spirit to inhabit. The
only way to get the new heart is to have God perform open heart surgery. No one can perform a heart transplant
operation on themselves. No amount of exertion and striving for personal righteousness can remove our genetic defect of heart-sin.
It is woven throughout our spiritual DNA and has damaged our hearts beyond repair. "The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable--who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9, HCSB). We
must be given a complete heart transplant or we will die lost in
our sin.
“For while we were still helpless, at the
appointed moment, Christ died for the ungodly. For rarely will someone die for
a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die.
But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ
died for us! Much more then, since we have now been declared righteous by His
blood, we will be saved through Him from wrath. For, if, while we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, then how much more,
having been reconciled, will we be saved by His life! And not only that, but we
also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have now received this
reconciliation through Him” (Romans 5:6-11, HCSB).
Christ coming into the world is God’s gift for eternal life and His indwelling presence, if we will believe and receive the sacrifice for sin Jesus made on our behalf. When we accept the free gift of
God’s forgiveness, a total forgiveness for everything we are, everything we
have done and everything we will ever do, then we can come to know the Father,
just as Jesus prayed. “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will
believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are
in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe
that You sent Me” (John 17:20-21, NKJV). This unmerited favor is something we did not
work for, or earn by being good or doing righteous acts. This forgiveness is called grace and is available to all of us and is based on only one
thing, the sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross for our sins, so that the penalty
for sin demanded by justice was paid in full. When we repent we too can rejoice with the
angels. “Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of
God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10, NKJV).
“For it is by free grace (God’s unmerited favor)
that you are saved (delivered from judgment and
made partakers of Christ’s salvation) through [your faith]. And this
[salvation] is not of yourselves [of your own doing, it came not through your
own striving], but it is the gift of God;” (Ephesians 2:8, Amplified).
Anyone who has traveled the lonely road of
self-awareness and recognizes the futility of perfection by self-effort, understands their shortcomings. If we merely understand our shortcomings
but continue to hang onto our independence and self righteousness we will continue to
be separated from God and under the condemnation of sin.
True
repentance means more than simply saying “I’m sorry for all the bad things I’ve
done or the wrong attitudes I've had.” Repentance unto salvation means
turning and going the opposite direction, it means giving up any entitlement
to yourself, your family or your friends. "If anyone desires to come after Me, let
him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to
save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own
soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26, NKJV). Repentance means opening the door of your
soul to the Lord Jesus and letting Him be your All in all. Only then can He perform the heart transplant
you so desperately need. No surgeon can operate on a patient until they have given up even the right to breathe for
themselves.
Jesus stands ready to love you with a love beyond all measure, but He will not force open the entrance to your heart. It is for you to open the door and let Him in. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the
right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were
born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but
of God” (John 1:12-13, NKJV).
God’s greatest gift to mankind was born, wrapped
in swaddling cloths, and laid in an animal’s feeding trough over 2000 years ago on a cold winter's night, with the accompaniment of celestial angels and the
witness of rough shepherds. Having laid aside His robes of glory, God
took upon Himself the form of a human in order to save all mankind from themselves.
And He did it all for love.
Copyright 2013 Kathy Sanders
