A surprising Christmas (part 2)

Turn to the LORD…for He will freely pardon (Isaiah 55:7).

Do you want to know something surprising about Christmas?  I’ll tell you something surprising—the LORD God Almighty gives us gifts without expecting anything in exchange.

It’s amazing, yet it’s true—when the LORD blesses us with gifts, He does not demand anything in compensation.  This goes against everything we were raised to believe in.  If there’s anything experience teaches us, it’s that nothing comes without a price tag.  When your daughter cleans up her room for no apparent reason, you anticipate being approached for some kind of favor.  If you are invited to a wedding, it’s expected that you will bring a gift.  If your neighbor loans you his tools, you can bet that some day he’ll be knocking on your door, looking for help with a project.  When a gift or favor comes your way, you know that some kind of compensation will be expected.

What’s amazing about Christmas is that God provided the greatest gift of all, yet He demands nothing from us in return.  We don’t have a dollar amount that must be put into the collection plate.  We don’t have to volunteer a minimum number of hours to charity work.  God doesn’t tell us how often to be in church, how to dress for worship, or require that we serve on a committee. 

God demands nothing in repayment for the gift of His Son, because repayment is simply not possible.  Jesus came to save us because we are helpless to save ourselves.  Paul says, you were dead in your transgressions and sins…But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ (Ephesians 2).  You were spiritually dead inside, until Jesus brought your soul back to life with His love and forgiveness.  A person whose heart stops beating cannot resuscitate himself—he is dead unless an EMT gets the heart beating again.  So it is with us—without Jesus taking hold of our hearts, we would helplessly face eternal death.  How do you repay someone for bringing you back to life?  You can’t—and Jesus doesn’t expect you to.  All that God expects of us is to repent and believe the Good News—that 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 (Mark 1:15, John 3:16).  That is an amazing gift, made all the more surprising because we don’t have to pay God back for it.