The Gifts of Christmas

 

Here it is, Christmas Day. Chances are high you're not getting around to reading this until later on in the day...or maybe even a few days later.

If you're blessed enough to have had family gathered around a tree and presents under that tree, the gifts have been unwrapped and appropriately oohed and ahhed over.

We celebrate God taking on flesh by receiving wonderful gifts from each other, and yet, in order to be born, Jesus gave up so much:

Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.

When he appeared in human form,
he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

Philippians 2:6-8 (NLT)

Jesus gifted himself to us, and we give gifts to each other in celebration of that.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that, as long as we know the difference in value between our gifts and God's.

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Truth is...I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ.  -  Philippians 3:7-9 (NLT)