The Gift of God

Fifty 2 Sunday’s ~ Listening for God

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

        Many of us are preoccupied this time of year with the giving and getting of gifts.  It is said in giving one becomes like God. There is the biblical principle that it is “greater to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35) and certainly, there is joy in giving when it meets a need, fulfills a longing or lifts another up (figuratively or literally).  

        The scriptures are full of instructive examples of giving (and receiving); Luke 6:38 tells us “Give, and it will be given to you.  A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.  For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”  Moreover, in Matthew we read “Freely you have received; freely give” (10:8b).  

       God's gift accepted by faith (John 3:16) is for all who will receive it. For those who believe and place their trust in Jesus the gift sets them free. "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:1 & 2). Amen! Let's rejoice in the gift of God that keeps on giving. 

~* Merry Christmas *~

For God So Loved

Fifty-2 Sunday’s ~ Listening for God

        The minister said it may be the best known verse from the bible- John 3:16:”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”. "The world" includes all of humanity -past-present-future. "The world" embodies all of us and all of our messy, stubborn hearted, idol worshipping self-serving sinfulness. God so loved that he gave. 
         This can be hard to grasp; hard to believe. It makes me think of when I was a teenager and how my parents would occasionally say to me—that they always loved me but they did not always like what I did or how I behaved. I took it a step further and actually told my children during their adolescent years that although I loved them, at a particular moment because of the way they were acting/being, I was not feeling very loving toward them. The point being, it can be a challenge to love in the face of rebellion, rejection, offense,etc. 

      God understands this. The nature of his love is that although we have repeatedly and metaphorically spit in his eye and turned our back on him-he has never stopped loving us. “While we were sinners…Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Maybe this doesn’t sound so extreme, after all the preceding verse says “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die” (Romans 5:7). Certainly there are times when someone will die for another person, but in general, it is a rare. No one, however, can die on behalf of another person and serve as an offering for their sins. Only Jesus can do this: "He himself bore our sins" in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness; "by his wounds you have been healed" (I Peter 2:24). God's love expressed to us through his son cancels our debts and nullifies our sins. "This is how God showed his love among us; He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him" (I John 4:9). This love continues today, "Christ Jesus-who died--more than that, who was raised to life-is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us" (Romans 8:24).

       There is really only one response we can have to such love - and that is to graciously accept it and strive to love others as he has loved us; “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us” (I John 4:12). This is how we testify to how God so loves the world.