Real or Fake Gifts?
Did you ever receive an expensive-looking gift and then find out after the initial excitement that it was an imitation, a fake?
LOVE! PEACE! HOPE! JOY! Everyone wants these wonderful gifts we hear about at Christmas time, but too many settle for the world’s cheap imitation. The genuine article comes only from God, the giver of all good gifts!
Let’s start with LOVE.
The cheap imitation—what the world says:
· Love yourself first
· Love = sex
· Love = approving whatever anyone else says or does
Genuine love—what God says:
♥ True love comes from God, who loved us first. (1 John 4:19)
♥ True love puts others first, seeks what is best for the one we love.
(1 Corinthians 13)
♥ God’s love is unconditional, forgiving, forever! (Exodus 34:6-7)
♥ Love is why Jesus left his heavenly throne
to take on a lowly human body,
to endure poverty and rejection,
to become the sacrifice for our sin
and to blaze the path to a wonderful relationship with God
and life with him forever.
God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life. (NCV)
This is God’s Christmas gift to you and me! Have you received it?