December 28, 2021
With this being the Christmas season and a lot of emphasis on gift-giving I wanted to share with you about the greatest gift of all.
I recently had a great Christian family bless me with 2 tickets to the SEC championship game in Atlanta. My friends know my passion for the GA Bulldogs. So these tickets were a great blessing to me as I certainly couldn’t afford to buy them on my own.
As I said the tickets were out of my price range but these Christian friends gave them to me free of charge as a blessing to me because they love me. All week long leading up to the game my excitement and anticipation grew. I did not actually get the tickets until Friday before the game on Saturday but I knew that the family who offered them to me were rock solid and that I would get them.
A couple of times during the week leading up to the game I thought about how blessed I was that someone else paid the price for me to go to this great event. Someone else loved me enough to share this blessing with me. I even thought of ways that I could repay them or do something for them to show my appreciation. I kept thinking that this is just too great of a gift for me. I certainly don’t deserve this more than anyone else and I am not really worthy of a gift of this great value.
I asked the family about the tickets and if I could repay them and they told me that originally, they had bought the tickets for their son and his wife but he couldn’t go so the next person that they thought of to give them to was me. WOW. I got to take their son’s place at this great event. I got to enjoy all of the benefits of this blessing that was paid for by someone else. They were treating me like their son. But as I took their son’s place, I thought about how God’s Son took my place on the cross so that I could go to Heaven one day.
Isn’t that in a way what God has done for us? He has paid the price for us to go to the greatest event ever imagined – Heaven. His Son took our place on the cross and thus paid the price in full so that we could join God at the heavenly event for all eternity. There is nothing that we can do to repay the price or ever earn the right to go and enjoy it. It is a gracious gift of love that He shares with us without charge.
Now suppose that when my Christian friends called me and offered me the tickets that I had said “NO. I don’t want your tickets. I am not good enough to have the tickets.” Or “What can I do to earn the tickets or pay you back for them?” Or even – “I don’t believe that I can trust you to really give me something this wonderful.” Or worse yet, “I will take your tickets but I will resell them or abuse them.” I would not be showing my gratitude for the price that was paid for the tickets and for the love that was extended in offering them to me.
God has paid the price in full for our salvation. There is nothing that we can do to earn it or repay Him for it. Just receive this wonderful love gift and do all that you can to enjoy your salvation down here for the rest of your life and then for all eternity in Heaven.
He is faithful and if He promises you the blessing of having the joy of salvation here and in Heaven one day – He WILL deliver on that promise. We don’t deserve it but He loves us enough to give it to us.
I just wish that the result of the game would have been different.
In love with Jesus – Gary Mimbs