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by Greg Laurie
I heard that someone actually tried to calculate how much it would cost to give
the gifts named in the classic Christmas song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas."
The grand total came to about $15,000.
Some items were affordable, like a partridge in a pear tree for $34.99. Six
turtledoves will run you somewhere around $50. Six geese-a-laying will cost
around $150.
But the price soars when you add 11 pipers piping. That is $1,000 right there.
Then there are the 12 drummers drumming. With current union scale for musicians,
they will run you another $1,000.
The price really soars when you get 12 lords-a-leaping. We are talking $3,000
for them. Granted, I don't know where you would find them, but they are very
expensive.
But the real message of Christmas is not the gifts we give each other. Rather,
it is a reminder of the gift that God has given to each of us. It is the only
gift that truly keeps on giving, so I want to point out four things about it.
First, it is surprising. When Christmas rolls around, you often try to figure
out if certain people have bought that gift you really wanted. Maybe you already
know what they bought, because they didn't hide it very well. Or maybe you
uncovered it by accident—or maybe not. But when the day comes and you open the
present, you have to pretend you're surprised. Yet all along, you knew what it
was. God's gift to us, however, was a complete surprise. It was not expected
and, as you examine it more carefully, you realize how great a gift it actually
was.
Second, God's gift came to us in the humblest of wrappings. What would you think
if you saw a gift under your Christmas tree that was wrapped in newspaper and
tied up with string? At first, you would probably assume that a guy wrapped it.
But think about God's gift to us. Jesus was not born in a palace of gold; He was
born in a stable. He was clothed in rags. He was laid in a feeding trough. Yet
these things do not, in any way, diminish the story of Christ's birth. If
anything, they help us realize the great sacrifice God made for us. God's gift
to humanity, the ultimate gift of eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ,
came in the simplest and humblest of wrappings.
Third, we don't deserve this gift. At Christmas, we give gifts to the people we
care about, the ones who have been kind to us over the past year, or the ones
who have given us a gift first. We don't give gifts to the person who has been
slandering our name, or to the angry neighbor who never has a kind word to say.
Yet God gave us His gift when we were His enemies. He didn't give this gift to
us because we deserved it. In fact, it was just the opposite. The Bible tells
us, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still
sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8 NKJV).
Fourth, the gift tells us something about the giver. When you want to give
someone a gift, you start thinking about it ahead of time. Hopefully, you try to
find what that person wants or needs. When God decided to give us the gift of
eternal life, it wasn't something that He just thought of on the fly. Long
before there was a town called Bethlehem, a garden called Eden, or a planet
called Earth, a decision was made in eternity that God would send forth His Son,
born of a woman, to redeem those who are under the law.
The Bible says that He was slain from the foundation of the world (see
Revelation 13:8). Make no mistake about it: this gift that God has given to us
was the most sacrificial thing He possibly could have offered.
So Christmas isn't about those gifts that you have under your tree right now.
All of those things will be gone one day. All that will be left after this life
is the human soul, and that will live forever. We will put so much stock in what
we have, but this is all going to pass away.
Life is about what happens beyond the grave. Life is about knowing the God who
made you and who gave you the greatest gift you will ever receive.
Copyright ©2011 by Harvest Ministries. All Rights Reserved.
See Also:
The Essential Message of Christmas by Greg Laurie
We need to remember the essential message of Christmas, which is Immanuel—God is with us. And for the hurting person, the lonely person, the sorrowing person, this is the time of year to bring the gift of encouragement to them and say, "The message of Christmas is: God will be with you. God will help you. God will strengthen you."The Truth of the Nativity
We can't know Jesus if we don't understand He is real. The story of His birth is no allegory. We dare not romanticize it or settle for a fanciful legend that renders the whole story meaningless. Mary and Joseph were real people. Their dilemma on finding no room at the inn surely was as frightening for them as it would be for you or me.What I Want for Christmas
I have always believed in the promise of Christmas. There has always been something special to me about this time of the year, going back to my earliest days of childhood.
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