Did you brave the stores on Black Friday to get deals for gifts? Have you done all your gift shopping? Are there some people for whom it is difficult to buy the right gift? Do you wonder if the gifts will be appreciated? Giving gifts has been a part of human cultures for millennia. I guess the first gift given was not a good one (Eve gave Adam the fruit) and we have been trying to do better ever since. But seriously, God is a giver and since we are created in his image it is natural that we want to give as well.

We know God is the greatest gift-giver because he gave his only son for us, according to John 3:16. Other passages tell us about the things God has given us as well, and as God’s Son, Jesus is also a giver. Ephesians 4:7-8 tells us about Christ’s gifts, “But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.  8  Therefore it says,’When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.’” When Jesus rose from the grave he gave us gifts. Those gifts are available to all mankind and we need to be letting everyone know so they can receive their gifts from Jesus.

In addition to grace that is mentioned in verse 7, what are some of the gifts mentioned in verse 8 where he paraphrases Psalm 68:18? He gave us hope that we could overcome death because he rose again. He gave us freedom from the fear of death that has such a powerful hold on humanity. He gave us confidence that God’s promises are trustworthy. He gave us a pattern to imitate in baptism as a way to show that we are freed from sin. There are more gifts he gave through his loving sacrifice and his conquering the enemy of death. We need to be thankful for all these gifts and share them with others. 

What gifts that Christ gave are you most thankful for? What gifts have you overlooked? Let’s show our appreciation to Christ by living our lives for him every day and giving him our devotion in return.

Jesus uses this phrase 4 times in the book of Revelation to describe himself, 1:11,17; 2:8; 22:13. It is combined with other phrases like “Alpha and Omega” and “the beginning and the end” as well as two times mentioning that he had been dead but was now alive. This last may have reference to him being the first fruits of the resurrection in addition to the idea of beginning and end. Of course all of these symbolic descriptions point to his deity and his position of being before time was created and existing after time as we know it ends, in other words being eternal.

You probably knew this phrase was associated with Jesus and maybe that it was used in Revelation, but did you know that the Lord uses this same description of himself in the Old Testament? Employing a similar phrase to explain the actions of a king is used 9 times in the Chronicles. The image of first and last is used throughout the Bible for other reasons as well, like when Jesus says “the first shall be last” and he fulfilled this idea in a sense as well by being first (God) and becoming the least or last by dying a criminals death on the cross. 

In Isaiah 41:4; 44:6; 48:12 the Lord proclaims to Israel that he is the first and he is the last. It is no accident that Jesus pulls this same moniker from the book of Isaiah and applies it to himself in Revelation to let his people know that he is the same God that Isaiah prophesied for. And of course the idea of him being first in the sense of being before all things and first in the since of being greatest are taught other places also.

Will you put your trust in and serve the one who was before the world existed and who will remain after all is said and done?

It is always good to have a little evidence that a promise will be fulfilled. We like a down payment on something we are selling, an earnest check on a house sale, free taste tests of foods before we buy, a try it before you buy it, and many other things like that. It should come as no surprise, then, that we would really like something to help us trust some of God’s promises, too. He has promised many things in the past that came to pass already, but we still wonder about the future promises sometimes. 

God has promised eternal life. He has promised that even if we die he will raise us back to life. Does he give us a free sample to help encourage us? Yes, he has. He raised Jesus from the dead to show us that he has the power and the desire to raise us as well. Jesus being raised from the dead is referred to as the “firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” in 1 Corinthians 15:20. Now if y’all have read your Bibles then y’all know that Jesus was not the first person to come back from the dead. There were even people in the Old Testament that were brought back to life hundreds of years before Jesus was on Earth. Jesus even during his ministry raised some people from the dead, so why is he the firstfruits instead of any of them? The simple answer is that there is something unique about his resurrection.

All of the people in the Bible who rose from the grave died again, except Jesus, who rose to never die again. That is why his resurrection is so much more important than the others and that is why we can trust God when he promises us resurrection and eternal life. Jesus’ resurrection is the free taste test. His is the down payment. Rom 8:11 “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” 

His resurrection is also a promise of Judgment day. Act 17:31  because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Are you ready to be raised like Jesus at the last day? 

Have you ever stood on unstable ground? Maybe the sand that washes away from your feet in the ocean, or mud that you sink down into, or maybe slippery ice or gravel on the side of a hill, or maybe you have been in an earthquake where the solid ground wasn’t solid anymore. In any of those cases people wish they had something solid and safe on which to put their feet. The Psalmist felt this way spiritually. He says in Psalm 73:2 “But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped.” A solid spiritual foundation is even more important that a physical one, because our eternity depends on it.

If we tried to make our own foundation it wouldn’t be very trustworthy, so it’s a good thing for us that God didn’t leave it to chance or to us. He provided the best foundation that we could have. Now when we talk about our foundation, sometimes we are talking about the truths that are spoken in the scriptures and how believing and knowing them gives us something to build our lives on. We see this kind of idea when we are told to add to our faith, virtue and then knowledge, etc. 

But most important is what those scriptures tell us our faith is to be built upon and the church is to be built upon. Peter confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God and Jesus praised him for that statement of truth and explained that this fact was the rock on which he would build his church, Matthew 16:16-18. Paul drives this point home in 1 Corinthians 3:11 where he says, “For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Our foundation for life, faith, the church, salvation, and eternal life in Heaven must be built on this solid foundation of Jesus or it will crumble. 

Is your foundation Jesus? Is he the one that is holding up everything you are building in this life and for the life to come? No other foundation will hold up, build on the only eternal foundation, Jesus.