The one verse of Scripture that almost every person - believer or non-believer - knows is John 3:16: “for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten (i.e. one and only) son…” It is a theme repeated throughout the Bible that God is Love. While we love that God loves we sometimes forget that His love for us came with a terrible price - the death of His son.
Love… a much-used word for many things and in many settings. I love my spouse, and I love football…I love food, and I love God… I love God’s word, and I love fishing. We use that word in so many different ways that it needs a context to be attached to it to have meaning.
Paul, writing to the Corinthians said something about God’s love without using the word love:
2 Corinthians 9:15 - “thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift”.
Did you ever get an inexpressible gift? It’s a gift that leaves you speechless and in awe. It means we have no words to attach to the gift that would do justice to what the gift means.
An Inexpressible gift is like a groom standing up front in the church as his bride begins to walk down the aisle.
An Inexpressible gift is watching your child being born and holding them for the first time.
We can count the number of those kinds of gifts on one hand.
Question: What were the gifts you received last Christmas? Remember?
For many, and it is many, there is no remembering…unless it is something like the tshirt a relative of mine gave me with writing on the front that I never wore.
For the most part, there are seldom any gifts that arise to the level of what is inexpressible.
What we do remember is those gifts that don’t necessarily lie under a tree, but come from love, generosity, and an overflowing heart of affection…gifts that are inexpressible and inspire awe. Sometimes those gifts come without our knowing they were coming…they happen. They come because the author of the gift is not trying to amaze us, but to give because they love, and they give out of that love.
God’s gifts to us are numerous…new every morning, the Psalmist says. Gifts that come from an overflowing heart of love…not from duty as in “I had to”...but from the generosity of the divine initiative of God’s being.
I wish I could be more like that.
So, let’s ask ourselves, what is it that motivates our giving gifts? What causes us to look for THAT gift…why?
I hope the answer is LOVE…because that is what God did for us.
We worship Jesus, and the reason is simple - God sent his son as a gift and speaks in Advent - “I did it for you”.
Comments