Gifts! Gifts! Gifts! People sure love getting and giving them year round don’t they?! And it seems at Christmas, it gets ramped up to full speed ahead! So, besides baking every cookie known to man, fully decorating your home – inside & out – sending cards to people you rarely see, and attending all sorts of holiday events – you now find yourself shopping your head off for scores of people. But what to buy?? The million dollar question for sure.
Gifts come in lots of shapes and sizes! For instance, consider this fabulous gift that boxer Mike Tyson bought his then-wife, Robin Givens, back in 2013 – a 24-carat, solid gold bathtub. Estimated value? Over two million dollars. Well – that’s one option, I guess. Another husband blindfolded his wife on Christmas morning and led her outside where there was a shiny red car with a gigantic red bow on top. New car? No – he just cleaned up her old vehicle and attached a beautiful red bow. No pricy tag – but what a novel idea.
One year, my husband informed me that he had gotten my gift – a big surprise, he said. He wouldn’t tell me what it was right away, but he did tell me that although it would always be mine, I could never actually have it. Geez – and this is my gift?! Turns out he had tattooed my name with a heart around it on his upper arm! He was so proud of this ingenious gift – what could I say?! And yes – I love it.
Hopefully you are loving the gifts you pick out for your friends and family. I always choose presents that I like – after all – if I don’t like the gift, why should they? But I choose carefully, knowing that, in the end, the gift I choose represents me to them. Think about it – I can gift-wrap a big bag of lemons for my daughters or wrap up beautiful gold bracelets. Each gift would speak volumes about my relationship to them! Here’s the way Donald Westlake sees it: “As we struggle with shopping lists and invitations, compounded by December’s bad weather, it is good to be reminded that there are people in our lives who are worth this aggravation, and people to whom we are worth the same.”
I Corinthians 13 in the Bible is the supreme narrative on the gift of love. Just for a taste, here are a few of those verses: “If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all His mysteries and making everything plain as day, and I I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump.” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.”
In 2007, Wesley Autrey was standing on the platform of a New York City subway with his two young daughters when a man nearby suffered a seizure and fell onto the tracks. Looking down the rail-line, he saw the light of an oncoming train fast approaching. Making a split second decision, Wesley leapt in front of the train and pinned the seizing man to the ground as the train rumbled by overhead, saving the man’s life. Later on, when asked why he risked his life for a complete stranger, Wesley replied, “I did what I felt was right.” In my humble opinion – I would say he showed an unselfish act of extreme love! This actually reminds me of something Eric Sevareid said about this season: “Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we’re here for something else besides ourselves.” I think Christmas certainly came early for one New York City gentleman!
Of course, we wouldn’t even be celebrating this amazing holiday of Christmas without the incredible gift of a Savior – Jesus Christ. It’s true – He really is the reason for the season! 2 Corinthians 9:15 put it this way: “Praise God for this incredible, unbelievable, indescribable gift.” Someone once said, “Christmas means giving. The Father gave His Son, and the Son gave His life. Without giving there is no true Christmas!”
Perhaps our friend, the Grinch, hit the nail on the head when he said this: “Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!” Ahhh – yes – right on Mr. Grinch, you’re getting the big picture!
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Bob and Susan Beckett pastor The Dwelling Place City Church at 27100 Girard Street in Hemet, CA. For more information, you can contact them at DPCityChiurch.org.
Susan Beckett | The Dwelling Place City Church
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