It is the time of year when  many are exchanging gifts. Some will receive gifts they love and others will not be so pleased. Some will find a unique gift for each individual and others will give everyone the same thing. Some gifts will be expensive and some will be priceless. Some will be given out of love and friendship some out of guilt or duty. Some gifts will not be fully appreciated at first and some will become a disappointment with time. There are many highs and lows when it comes to the giving and receiving of gifts. What is the best gift you have ever received?

If you are a Christian I can answer that question even though I probably don’t know more than a few of the gifts you have been given in your life. How can I be so confident? Because it is Jesus. John 3:16 speaks of God giving the greatest gift that could be given and how he did it because of his great love for us. We looked a few weeks back at Christ as a giver of gifts, but let’s admire him as the most spectacular of all gifts ever given. In 2 Corinthians 9:15 Paul gives thanks to God for Christ and in various translations refers to Christ and the salvation that comes only through him as God’s inexpressible/unspeakable/too wonderful to describe gift. And truly what words could express God’s giving of his own Son.

Giving of some kind or another is so common a theme in the Bible that some form of the word is mentioned over 2000 times in some English translations. But of all the giving that is mentioned, and a good bit of it is mentioning the things God gave, nothing compares to this gift that we as humans can’t fully comprehend or explain. But Jesus was given for us. Unlike many of the things that we give which are limited, God gave Christ for all mankind and everyone can have this indescribable gift. Give thanks to God if you have received this gift which is precious beyond words. If you haven’t received Christ, Why are you waiting? By receiving him you are given the right to become children of God (John 1:12).

As sad as it is there are many who deny that Jesus is God. That is nothing new, many of the Jews of his own day who saw the multitude of miracles he performed did not believe in him. Sadder however is the fact that some who call themselves Christians don’t believe that he is God. They may believe that he was a righteous man or a prophet, or even that he is the Son of God, but still reject him being God in the flesh. 

In the early days of Christianity there were some called Gnostics and Docetists who came up with elaborate theories to explain that Jesus was not really God or at least that the part that was God didn’t die on the cross. There are still many today who reject the idea of God dying for mankind, and I understand it may be impossible for us to understand, but we cannot reject reality just because we don’t understand it. There are many basic things that we deal with every day that we don’t understand. Just consider hundreds of tons of water hanging over our heads in clouds, how? Or that the Earth itself is simply hanging in space (and also moving), how? - Job 26:7-8. 

Jesus made it clear in John 10:30-33 saying, “I and the Father are one” The Jews understood what he meant even if they rejected it. They were ready to stone him to death, “because you, being a man, make yourself God.” Jesus taught the disciples the same thing in John 14:7-9, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”. Even when Thomas fell at his feet proclaiming, “my Lord and my God” in John 20:28, Jesus could have corrected him if this was not accurate, but Jesus honored his statement instead. There should be no question in our minds that Jesus is God, if we believe the Bible.