What do you really want?

Christmas - more than birthdays, anniversaries or graduations - is a time for giving gifts.   So much so that our culture celebrates the giving of gifts above the giver of life itself.  That’s hardly a revelation.  It’s also hardly a revelation that almost everything you get for Christmas will be either forgotten or discarded in just a few years, and nothing wrapped under the Christmas tree is forever.

But you could ask for a gift that does last.  Salvation is a free gift for those who are not yet ready to enter eternity, and to those who already have salvation Jesus said,  “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. ¹² For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” ^[1]

You might think that is unfair.  Certainly from a social point of view, those who have should share with those who do not yet have.  But that is looking at it from a financial perspective, and God is not concerned with financial equality (obviously).  That’s because money is a man-made thing, and is therefore (like all wrapped presents) a temporary thing.  When the eternal comes, the temporary is forgotten!   

Oh, you can ask for expensive things from family and loved ones this Christmas - and you might even get them if they can afford it.  But even the most expensive gift money can buy is not valuable in eternity, where even gold is so abundant it is used as paving material.  No, to get what is truly valuable and truly worthwhile, you have to ask God for it.  What God gives truly lasts.  What God takes away is truly gone.  He gives His Kingdom (like His wisdom) in abundance to those who seek for it.  He gives an absence of both to those who don’t. 

This Christmas, ask Him for more.  He is far more generous than Santa, and His gifts are far more valuable than anything you could ever get from rich people. 

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^[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Mt 13:11–12). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.