God’s Gift to Us: Part 1 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

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Transcript

Good morning,

I’m here to spend some time with God together with you on this week of Christmas.

As we think about Christmas, of course, the most important thing about Christmas is God.

Sometimes we think the most important thing about Christmas is the presents or the big dinner or even spending time with people we love, and that is very important.

But what makes Christmas Christmas is Christ.

And we should never forget that there is nothing more important to our lives than Jesus Christ Himself.

Not just what he brings to us, not just the blessings of knowing Him, but He Himself is the best thing about life. We need to make sure that we are putting Him first in our lives every single day of our lives.

I want to talk all this week about the ultimate gift and where better to go than the famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, and I’ll read the following verse 2.

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Where it says, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life, for God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.

Well what is the greatest gift ever given? What is the ultimate gift?

It is Jesus Christ. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

You know something, when we think about Jesus Christ, sometimes we think of him as a baby, and that’s certainly how he came at Christmas.

Or sometimes we think about him growing up in the carpenter’s shop learning how to use those carpenter’s tools. We think about the fishing boat he spent a lot of time with his disciples in that fishing boat or the throne he will sit on forever in heaven, or the dove descending on him as the Holy Spirit anointed him for his ministry. There’s so many different pointers that symbolise Jesus Christ’s life, who he was.

But the one thing that has remained the great symbol of the person of Jesus Christ down through the centuries is the cross of Jesus Christ, and that is His greatest gift to you.

Jesus, God the Son took your sin, your guilt before God the Father on Himself. He faced God’s anger, God’s judgement for you, so that you don’t have to, so that the favour, the love, the grace that God the Father wants to extend to His Son Jesus, He extends to you because you have been united with Christ, because of Jesus’ gift to you, Jesus’ death on the cross.

What dominated Jesus’ life, John Stott says – It was not the living but the giving of his life.

That is so right. And as you spend time this Christmas thinking about what really matters, be sure that you and your family or your friends or even on your own that you take time to stop and remember the greatest gift that was ever given.

Jesus Christ on the cross for you.

I’m John North.

To go deeper in your faith, visit AFCI.com.au.

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