The Perfect Gift

It’s Christmas day and for the past day, people all across the world have gathered around trees adorned with ornaments and gifts covering their trunks. It is this time of year, every year, when people universally pause to do something unique—they pause their lives and open gifts.

So, what exactly is a gift? This seems like a simple question, but it is one that has been on my mind a great deal as of late.

A gift, I’ve concluded, is something that does not have to be given. A gift is given out of love. Rather than a need, which can be met out of love and/or compulsion, a gift can only be the product of love.

A gift is also something that causes the giver to sacrifice something. This can be money, time, resources, or creativity, but a gift must cost something.

So these are the two qualifications for a gift:

1) It must be given out of love.

2) It must cause some form of sacrifice for the giver.

With these two qualifications, is it possible to say there is one gift that stands above the rest? Is it possible for there to be a perfect gift, one given out of perfect love and bought with a perfect sacrifice?

It may be cliché to say, but Jesus is THE perfect gift. God did not have to save humanity and reconcile us to Himself, but He chose to do so because of His great love for us.

Romans 3:23-24 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a GIFT, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

Paul continues this theme of God’s grace being a gift in chapter six. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the FREE GIFT of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

It’s not a stretch to say that Jesus is the perfect gift—THE BIBLE SAYS SO!

Jesus is the gift that we should never deserve, yet God gave Him to us regardless.

God loved the world, as John 3:16 tells us, that He SACRIFICED His son so that we could be reconciled to Him.

Crazy.

Beautiful.

Love.

Sacrifice.

Jesus is the perfect gift and God the Father is the perfect gift giver.

Merry Christmas.

My Personal Creed on the Doctrine of Christ.

I believe:

Jesus Christ is fully and completely divine (John 10:30). He is also fully and completely human (Gal 4:4). His divinity and humanity are distinct natures (John 1:1) that are fully united in His person (Gal 4:4-5).

Jesus Christ is fully and completely divine:

He is eternally divine (John 1:1, 8:58), lacking no divine attribute and possessing every such attribute fully. Jesus spoke about God’s law authoritatively because He is God and it is about Him (Matt 5:18, 7:28-29). Jesus is God and therefore deserves to receive worship (John 9:38; Matt 28:17). Jesus is the Son of God (Matt 3:17), a person of the triune Godhead who was present during creation and had an active role in it (John 1:1). Jesus himself was not created (John 1:1) and is therefore equal in essence to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. His deity affirms that people can have real knowledge of God (John 1:18, 14:9). He needed to be divine because salvation is from God alone (Jonah 2:9).

Jesus Christ is fully and completely human:

He is God Incarnate (John 1:14). He was conceived by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35) and born from Mary who was a virgin (Luke 2:7). Just as any other person, He lived (Luke 2:52), breathed (Luke 23:46), grew (Luke 2:40), thirsted (John 19:28), hungered (Matt 4:2), walked (Luke 5:27), talked (Luke 8:9-15), learned (Luke 2:52), grew tired (John 4:6), and slept (Luke 8:23). Jesus was tempted (Luke 4:1-2; Heb 4:15), but He never sinned (1 Peter 2:22; 1 John 3:5). Because of His humanity, he was fully capable of sinning (Eph 2:1), but because of His divinity He was fully able to resist sin (Heb 4:15). He was persecuted and died a criminal’s death (John 19). When He died, God poured our His wrath on His Son (2 Cor 5:21). Jesus, who did not sin, took on the sin and punishment of all people for all time, past, present, and future. He had a human body, which was broken for the sins of His human brethren (Luke 22:19-21). When He rose from the dead, His body was perfected, assuring the elect that their bodies will also be perfected (John 20:1-23). He ascended to heaven in His human body where He remains in human form today and forevermore (Acts 1:1-6). Christ’s humanity reaffirms God’s creation of man being good (Gen 1:31; 1 Tim 6:17).

Jesus is the true and perfect prophet (Deut 18:14-22; Matt 21:11), speaking God’s truth because He is God’s truth. Because of this, His followers are to represent Him in prophetically in the world (2 Cor 5:20). Jesus is the true and perfect high priest (Heb 4:15). As the high priest, He atoned for the sins of the world (1 John 2:2). Not only did He offer the perfect sacrifice for sin, but He himself was that perfect sacrifice (2 Cor 5:21). As high priest, He also intercedes on the behalf of believers, praying for His people based on the work He accomplished through the atonement (Heb 7:25). Jesus is the true and perfect king (Phil 2:10), ruling over His creation. He will judge all people from all time (1 Cor 15:24).

In Christ’s work consists of phases of humiliation and exaltation. Since the beginning of time, He was in heaven in His pre-incarnate glory (John 1:1). Next came the incarnation (John 1:14) and His earthly life (John 13:1-17). He was then crucified (Acts 3:15), resurrected (Rom 6:5), and then ascended (1 Tim 3:16) to be at the right hand of the Father (Acts 2:33) where He will be until His second coming (Rom 8:34). When He comes again, He will slay evil and Satan forever and reign as the true king (Rev 18-20). He will be glorified forever (Rev 5:9-10, 12).

Passions.

God has placed a passion in my heart to see His name and fame proclaimed with boldness and in truth. A few years ago I felt God’s call into vocational ministry. While unsure of His calling at the time, I decided to trust and obey Him. I could not be more excited for the plans He has for me. I could not be more humbled by this calling. There are so many times that I ask God why He chose me because surely He could have picked someone better, someone more faithful, someone more loving. Every time I think such things, He affirms to me that He is God and I am not. I am ever humbled by His call and ever grateful for His assurance.

I have a passion for seeing the Good News of Jesus spread all over the world. Nothing makes me happier than seeing believers living out their faith and convictions. In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us to be lights shining brightly for Him. If there is one thing that I get more excited about than anything else it is seeing people simply doing what God has called them to do. When we love God and shine for Him wherever He has us we will be beautiful reflections of Him. It is not the pastors and preachers that are the trustees of God’s word. Teachers, businessmen, musicians, athletes, scientists, homemakers, and artists are all preachers in their own right. The way they live their lives and the example they give preaches the Gospel for we are the image of the Invisible. It is to this end that I wish to devote my life to the Church, pouring into the lives of whomever God allows me because most life change actually happens outside of the sanctuary.

I want to experience God work in unimaginable ways. I want to see lives transformed by His love and mercy. I want to see a stagnant Church rise up and truly live out the Faith they currently claim. Imagine what would happen if we simply did what Christ called us to do. Let’s be the Church. Let’s proclaim Christ in everything and be unashamed of the grace that has saved us.

Straining forward to what lies ahead.

I absolutely love Paul’s letter to the Philippians. From the way he begins his letter, referring to himself as a servant of God (the only time he doesn’t refer to himself as an apostle), to the constant theme of humility, this letter is truly special. I spent last week at Hume Lake Christian Camps with the high school students from High Desert Church and in my own time with God, He really impressed upon me Philippians 3:4-14.

“If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 3:4-14

Paul had it all. He was the Jew of Jews. I mean, if you could be anyone or have any advantages, Paul was the guy you’d want to be. And yet he considers it all rubbish for the sake of Christ. Paul gets it! He really does! This part of the passage has always struck me in a mighty powerful way, but I’ve always read that and then glossed over the verses immediately following Paul’s powerful declaration. As of late, God has really stirred in me a passion for verses nine through fourteen.

I absolutely love how much Paul emphasizes that salvation is through faith alone. He goes on to say that “righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

Woah.

Now that’s devotion. That is the type of faith I long for. I think it can be easy for us to read a passage like this and be quick to say that we want the same thing as Paul (after all, that’s what a good Christian3 should do, right?). I wholeheartedly believe that our response needs to be yes, that we do wish to be like Christ in every way, but the gravity of such a response is so amazing.

After seeing thirty-four students give their lives to Christ last week at Hume Lake and after seeing many more make new commitments to Him, Paul’s comment that each day he has to continually strive to live the life God has called him to is encouraging. Here we have Paul, who we often put up on a high pedestal (and rightly so) and he says that he has not achieved the devotion to Christ he wrote about. He says that it is something he strives after each and every day, to grow closer and closer to Christ so that he would be more and more like Him.

I feel like verse fourteen sums it up perfectly, “But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

May that forevermore be in my heart and on my lips.

Pouring water on an already doused flame.

How do we know for sure that our place in eternity is set? Can we be completely sure that even though we profess with our lips that Jesus is Lord that we are Heaven bound? We think we are. We say we are. But in reality, are we?

Matthew 7:21-23 has been on my heart as of late. “‘Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then will I declare to them, I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

Wow.

Think about it. Jesus is saying that just because people say they believe in Him, that doesn’t mean that they are going to spend eternity with Him. Even though people have “[prophesied] in [His] name, and cast out demons in [His] name, and [done] many mighty works in [His] name,” He will reply, “I never knew you; depart from me you workers of lawlessness.”

Wow.

That’s tough stuff. It has me thinking about what it truly means to be a follower of Christ. This passage teaches us that empty words and deeds are just that: empty. They mean nothing. They are like pouring water on an already doused flame.

God did not become man and be teased, tormented, accused, spit on, whipped to the point of utter exhaustion and agony, have the sins of the world thrust upon his soul, and murdered via cruel capital punishment so that we could come to Him with empty praises and empty deeds.

He deserves so much more than that.

I think the majority of people who call themselves Christians want to be saved from the penalty of their sin rather than the sin itself.

I once heard Francis Chan say that he sometimes will sit in the foyer of his church and ask himself the question, “I wonder how many of these people will actually be in Heaven someday?” This isn’t a judgmental question. It is an important thing to ponder. If we really thought about it, how many people do you and I know that will actually be in Heaven when their time on Earth is over? It’s not my place to say who should or shouldn’t be in Heaven; that’s God’s job. It saddens my heart, however, to think that there are so many people who have yet to really realize just what Jesus has done for them and they are fully content with bringing Him empty words and deeds. Is it even possible that they think that what they bring to God is sufficient because that is all they know? There is an idea. After all, why would you offer empty praises if you knew, in fact that they were empty?

However, I believe that if someone’s approach to God is empty, even if they know no different, then (as hard as it is to say it) they were never a true believer to begin with.

In Romans 8:14-17, Paul says, “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba! Father! The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

If a person’s life doesn’t bear the fruit of a being radically changed by Jesus, then there is something terribly wrong. Paul is very clear that when we are redeemed from our enslavement to sin, the Spirit leads us. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” Our words and our deeds should be like those of Christ not because something requires them to be, but because the Spirit is at work within us.

When I think of the fact that many people who say “Lord, Lord” will not enter Heaven, I often think and wonder if I am one of those individuals. I think that even in reading a passage, such as Matthew 7 and Romans 8, when your heart turns and you have to wrestle with God’s words, I think that that you are indeed a sincere believer in Christ. If reading His words bothers us, makes us think, and makes us want to grow, that is evidence of the Spirit at work within us.

Therefore, we must run to Him at all cost. We must throw aside that which does not matter and focus on the only thing that does. Like the man who sold all he had to buy a field with buried treasure, so too must we do the same for the sake of knowing Christ and truly being His child.