In my recent “Keeping Christmas” post, I started off with pictures of Christmas decorations packed up in containers, not to be seen again until next holiday season.
However, the real Christmas can’t be put on a shelf or stored in the attic until next December. The ‘real deal’ is Jesus Christ, sent as God’s Gift to the world.
We can never enjoy any gift and receive the blessing that its giver intended, unless we open it and accept it as our own. So it goes for The Gift of Jesus – But how do we unwrap it and make it our own?
The original Gift from God to us was His sending of His only Son to earth – God in human form – to teach us Who God is, and then to suffer and die to pay the penalty for our sins.
After Jesus rose from the dead and returned to heaven, to sit at God’s right hand and intercede for all believers, the second part of The Gift was sent to earth – God in the form of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the part of God that lives inside every believer. Jesus in human form is no longer with us on earth, but His Spirit is with us and in us at all times – to:
- convict us of our sins
- guide and counsel us
- encourage and comfort us
- pray to the Father for us when we don’t know how to pray
- be “God with us” at all times
It is up to each of us as believers to determine how important this Gift will be in our lives — and how much we will allow God to bless us through it. When the Holy Spirit controls our lives, He fills us with God’s love and guides us in sharing it with others. In this way, “The Gift of Love” goes on…..and on…..and on…..
