The National Retail Federation estimated the value of returned holiday gifts at up to $95 billion. Wow! That’s a lot of returns! You’d think that if we knew each other better, we’d give gifts that the recipient would really want!
What a gift worth to the giver may be different than the value of the gift to the recipient. In a classroom in New York, a room full of kids were given candy treats for free, distributed randomly. Then they asked the kids how they felt about their free gift. The results were not promising. But when they were asked to do some clever exchanges, the value increased because each kid got more of what they would really enjoy, what they valued.
God gave a gift and you can return it, sure. But God knows you more than you know yourself, and whats more, God loves you, just the way you are. Right now!
What is the gift of a living, present, Savior, Jesus, worth to you?
Loving us and sending Jesus to live in our midst show us love in action, to take upon himself our sins and our failures but also our hopes and dreams, and then with him, to rise to new life. Sending Jesus was God’s way of loving us and showing us how to love like Jesus. To receive Jesus. To follow Jesus. To be like Jesus. God shows us how to love.
That was God’s way of making the world not just better but redeemed, transformed, different.
That was God’s way of bringing joy to your world. What is yours?
