Christmas is a wonderful time of the year for many reasons. And I think it’s true to say that one of the most enjoyable parts of Christmas is the giving and receiving of gifts.

But do we ever think about God's gift to us? The perfect gift to mankind. The gift of Jesus!

Let’s take a closer look at what this really means for us even today in 2020.

THE WRAPPING DOESN'T MATTER!

What would you think if you saw a gift under your Christmas tree that was wrapped in newspaper and tied up with a bit of old string?

Or like this!!!

And yet God’s gift came to us in the humblest of wrappings. Jesus was not born in a palace of gold; He was born in a stable. He was clothed with 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 realise the great sacrifice God made for us. God's gift to humanity, the gift of eternal life through Jesus, came in the simplest and humblest of wrappings.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Do we deserve this gift?

No not at all!

At Christmas, we generally give gifts to those:

* whom we care about,

* who have been kind to us over the past year,

*  or who have maybe given us a gift first.

But, did you think about what to get the person who has hurt you in the past, the irate person you ran into yesterday, or the thief that stole something from you last month?

I don’t know about you, but in general, I don’t think about giving gifts to my enemies.

But wrap your head around this: When God sent his son Jesus, he gave us this gift while we were still his enemies.

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us"  Romans 5:8 NIV

We did nothing (nor could we) to deserve this gift. So, in spite of the wrongdoings of mankind God sent his only Son to earth, to live amongst us, to show us the way to live, to eventually die for us on the cross.

And this amazing gift was sent to each and every one of us by way of a dirty and very unassuming manger in Bethlehem.

* What does the gift then tell us about the giver?

Well, generally 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.

In the same way, when God decided to give us the gift of Jesus, it wasn't something that he just thought of suddenly.

Long before there was even a town called Bethlehem, or even a planet called Earth, a decision was made in heaven that God would send his son to save mankind. (We will look a little more at this next week).

Here is a rather lighthearted little video about a Christmas gift, but I think the message is quite clear? What do we value?

AND FINALLY

God made his promise and kept it. Jesus became fully man, even though he was fully God. Now there’s a mystery for our human brains to ponder!

But why would God do that?

Quite simply, it was God’s gift of LOVE to us.

“For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son…” And it continues

“And this is why: so that no one need perish; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life”.  John 3:16 The Message

Wrapped up in this one verse is the whole story of Christmas. The gospel story in a nutshell. God, in the person of Jesus, transcended time and space and came into this world to be our Saviour.

Surely this is the world's greatest love story? And this Christmas, I call it God's Christmas gift to you   -   JESUS