A gift like no other
Chapter 2 of my Book "Bundles of Joy"
The best gift anyone on earth can at any time get is from God, and the best decision anyone can ever take in life is to accept this gift from the Lord Almighty. Interestingly, for anyone who gladly and willingly receives this God-given gift, the outcome is nothing but joy unlimited. I am so sure about this.
I got this gift two decades ago and I am still filled with its joy. And I have read and heard testimonies of several other people who received this precious gift of God and all of them shared the same experience as I did.
However, we should know that since it is a gift, it is free. Therefore, it can never be forced on anyone. But we must understand very clearly that it is a life-changing gift that everyone born into this world would need because without it, our existence on earth will be nothing but miserable and empty. Anyone can be anything in this world but no one is complete without this important God’s gift.
This gift brings hope of eternity and restores our relationship with the God.
Moreover, this single and vital gift becomes the chain that binds the receiver with his or her Maker. It is also a bright spark which connects the beneficiary with his last home after his sojourn in this present world.
I am so sure majority of people are found of receiving good thing. But to be candid the gift what I am talking about is like no other one.
Before I received this gift myself, I had heard of it too but the message has no meaning to me. I was told of how wonderful it would be if I get this valuable gift offered by the only living and loving Father but I bluntly refused all appeals. Really, all pleas to me were meaningless. They felt on deaf ears. I even abused and called those who introduced this gift to me all sorts of unprintable names. I saw them as dead woods, jobless people and useless religious bigotries. To be candid, I never believed their old and unimpressive “fables” taken from one old Book which I thought was irrelevant to me and my generation.
It was like saying ‘let the giver keeps his gift and let me live my life the way I want’. So, I maintained my “freedom” and I kept on living a wretched, careless, immoral and worthless life all through. I thought it was a normal and better way of doing things. In reality, my years in the university in the 80’s were horrible and ridiculous. I wouldn’t want to talk about those locust years of my life. I was only a useless gambler and a drunkard.
I never stopped this nonsense lifestyle even after I left school in 1989. To say the fact, my life was heading towards total collapse before the gracious and merciful God used a 12-year old girl who rescued me from my ignorance and stupidity.
God somehow used my “liberator” to invite me to a fellowship in a church in Lagos, Nigeria and through the ministration of a woman evangelist I was brought back to life from death.
I remember vividly that this woman talked about God’s special gift for all the people. That day, I did not only receive God’s special gift but I also got His unique gift for all believers. I will talk about this unique gift in the next chapter.
By and large, it was a wonderful day, a day I will never forget. It was a day I rejoiced and danced for joy. For over two decades till now this joy is still flowing within me. It was a day I got another life and became a new man. It was a new beginning for me.
This God’s special gift to the world is Jesus Christ through whom we can experience a never-ending joy.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son (as a gift), that whosoever believeth (receive) in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
So, it is “give and take”. In essence, God gave Jesus as the Saviour of the world and anyone who did not accept Him and believe Him cannot be saved. In strong Hebrew and Greek dictionaries, saved means sozo or sodezo and it literally connotes deliverance or protection. In other words, it means healing, preservation, doing well and to fully make whole. Indeed, salvation deals with both physical and spiritual matters. The scripture says:
“Every GOOD GIFT and every PERFECT GIFT is from above, and cometh from the FATHER of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17).
Which gift can be as good and perfect as Jesus through whom one can secure eternal life? Absolutely, there is none. How do you feel when you know you’re getting a better job with a fantastic pay package? Or how do you react when you’re being offered a better accommodation or a better car? Of course, you’re going to be happy. But Jesus Christ is simply the best gift to the world!
God has given the gift of Jesus but individuals are left alone with the option of taking this offer or rejecting it. Jesus is God’s wonderful gift to the world. Accepting this gift is accepting God’s only way to salvation and to eternal life. This is God’s imperishable gift to all people. Anyone who accepts this gift has his sins forgiven and all those who reject this gift will surely die in their sins.
Why should anyone die in his sins and face God’s wrath when in actual fact he can accept God’s gift and live? One undeniable fact is that all of us are sinners. We are far away from God. What I know is that although some of us are living our lives on logic and follow after several religious rituals, nothing can take away our sins but God through Jesus Christ ALONE!
“For the wages of sin is death; but the GIFT of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” – Rome 6:23
‘You can work for sin but it is a cruel master. When it pays you off, its wage is death – separation from God forever. In stark contrast, God does not pay wages. He has a free gift to offer’. No one can go scot-free from his sins but one can enjoy a new and better relationship with God by simply accepting His only way of redemption.
The gift of God is Jesus through whom we can get eternal union of our souls with God. One receives this gift when he believes in Jesus as his own personal Saviour. When one believes, he has his sins forgiven and he immediately becomes a child of God and God’s new creature (John 1:12 and 2 Corinthians 5:17).
The moment a person receives this gift, he begins a fresh and blissful life in Christ. And indeed, immediately an individual spreads forth his hands and accepts Jesus, the scripture explained that the hosts of heaven will burst into full blown celebration.
“Likewise, I say unto you, there is JOY in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth” (Luke 15:10).
Jesus had an encounter with a woman of Samaritan one day and He asked from her water to drink. Instead of this woman to give Him what he asked for, she started talking about old tales of how Jesus being a Jew ought not to have anything to do with her as a woman of Samaritan.
“But Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the GIFT OF GOD, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water” – John 4:10.
Soon after, this woman realised that Jesus was that ‘gift of God’. Jesus told her about her past and how she had already married five husbands. The woman’s life of adultery was exposed before Jesus who is the gift of God. Her meeting with Jesus changed everything about her life. Truly, her past was horrible but she had her destiny restored during this peculiar meeting. It doesn’t matter how our pasts looked like, those who come to God and accept Jesus will have their lives reinstated.
So, basking in this euphoria of joy, the woman left her water-pot, ran back into the city and called other people to come and meet her unusual guest.
“Come, and see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: Is not this the Christ?” (John 4:29).
Many of the Samaritans came and believed. Joyfully, these new believers begged Jesus to stay with them and he did that for two days.
No one will ever truthfully get this gift and want it taken away again. King David once lost it and he fervently prayed for its restoration. Have you lost yours too due to your carelessness? I want to assure you that you can seek for it and be restored. In David’s prayers of confession and forgiveness of sin, he raised his voice unto God and said:
“Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice…Restore unto me the JOY of salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit”. (Psalms 51: 8, 12).
Of course, when a man is rescued from a glaring danger, he will be glad. So, one should rejoice exceedingly when he is delivered from the power of sins and its consequences. David had enjoyed marvelous relationship with God. But somehow, he fell apart with God when he sinned with Bath-sheba and was confronted by Nathan the prophet.
You know, a cordial union with God brings about joy unlimited. And just like David, we need a restored relationship with our Creator and we can only get that if we accept God’s special gift of Jesus. David wanted the restoration of joy of salvation and he got it. You can get it too and you can get it right now!
You see, nothing can be compared to Jesus who willingly gave up His life as a sacrifice, then freely offered those who believed on Him life, a new beginning and a place in the eternal kingdom of God. Will you truly accept Jesus and make Him the Lord of your life and continue to enjoy God’s bundles of joy?
“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord”. (Acts 3:19).
These times of refreshing is that moment of rest, calmness and joy. We can only find ourselves in this condition only if we accept God’s special gift of Jesus.
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