EVERYTHING WE NEED: The Gift that Keeps on Giving

      Christmas has come and gone, and we have started a new year. The excitement of the Christmas season slowly fades into the background. Regardless of the pleasure gifts bring us at the time, they will not last forever. Toys break, kids’ interests change, jewelry is lost, clothes wear out or no longer fit — and we are no longer satisfied.

      Except… “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NIV1984). This is not a hope-so-verse. God’s gift keeps on giving and going from the moment we are saved to the moment we enter Heaven.

      During the months before Christmas, you might have heard a parent say to a child, “If you won’t be good, Santa Claus won’t bring you any toys,” hoping that threat will be sufficient to encourage the right behavior. God isn’t like that. He doesn’t threaten our salvation when we sin. Our desire should always be to please Him with love and obedience, but He will not take away our salvation when we fail.

      God is a “well” that never runs dry. “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (Isa. 12:2-3). In conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus told her that if she had asked Him for a drink, He would have given her “living water” (John 4:10). When she questioned how He could do that, He answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13).

      As a teenager, I lived in Van Buren, Mo., home of Big Spring, one of the three largest springs in America. It is a beautiful sight, with an average daily flow of 286 million gallons of water. It has never run dry. It is the same as the first time I saw it years ago! Like God’s gift, it keeps on giving.

      God’s gift is also “the bread of life.” Jesus proclaimed that it wasn’t Moses who gave the bread from Heaven, but “it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” He further declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:32, 35). Nothing God gives is ever lost, stolen, broken, destroyed, denied or taken away.

      “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (John 6:23). His gift should evoke joy, thanksgiving, happiness and excitement about what the future holds. It is the gift that keeps on giving, making life worth living. None of the gifts you gave or received for Christmas compares to God’s priceless gift of salvation. We can surely proclaim, “This is the best gift I have ever been given!”

      As we welcome this new year, remember nothing is more important than our relationship with God. He is our hope, our security and our strength. He keeps giving because He is “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). May God give us a blessed and happy new year as we faithfully serve Him.