The time for receiving gifts
Have you bought all your gifts yet? Whoops! Still four weeks to go. What a blessing to be able to give a gift, much more blessed than receiving a gift. There can't be a gift without one to give it and another to receive it. It's a little thing to accept a gift. It's not a lot to put out your hand and take a proffered gift. A wonderful gift is being offered to you. You may receive it. It is quite free. Nothing is freer. The poorest man in the world may accept a gift. An empty hand may receive a gift. A paedophile may receive a gift. A drug addict may receive a gift. As long as it is not because of man's merit but because of the generosity of the giver anyone may receive it. Once received then that gift is ours.
There has to be a receiving.
At the very beginning of John's gospel, when the apostle is writing about the indescribable gift of the Word who became flesh, he is talking about the rejection of Christ. He came to his own people, fellow Jews, but they didn't receive him. He was despised and rejected by them. They affirmed, ‘We have no king but Caesar’, and they crucified him. But many did receive him, and to all who did he gave the right to become the sons of God. They had to receive this gift from God. There is no hope without receiving him.
As you read these words God is stretching out his hands to you and in them there is an indescribable gift which he is offering to you. The gift is the Lord Jesus the Son of God, the great teacher, and protector, and guide of his people. He is being offered to you as your very own Saviour. Have you received him? Press the question home on yourself. Have I received this gift into my own heart? Are you carrying on with your life and saying to this loving giving Father, ‘No! I don't want your Son. I prefer the world and everything it has to offer me.’ Maybe you are saying, ‘I don't want this gift yet.’ You were saying that years ago, and you are still saying it. ‘There is plenty of time’, you say. But I don't hear you saying that about other things.
If the headmaster were to say to the school on the last day of term, ‘We were going to close for the holidays, but the weather is not nice today. So I think we'd better keep the school open for another month. Back for lessons tomorrow. Perhaps in a month's time the weather will be better. What do you think?’ All the school and all the teachers too would shout back at him, ‘No! Today! We want to go on vacation today. We don't want to wait another month. It doesn't matter about the weather. We want the school to close now!’
I want you to follow the example of those children. Please don't tell Almighty God that you will have his gift of eternal life in a month or at some other time. Is it so unworthy a gift? Isn't that a snub? I can see you saying no to a stone from the gutter, or refusing an ancient sticky piece of dusty, gritty toffee, but to refuse Jesus? Isn't that a terrible snub, as though he were not good enough for you? You have an old aunt, and your mother has always told you that after her days you are going to be rich, because your aunt is fond of you and she has decided to leave you some money in her will. Now you don't want her to die, I know, but you sometimes wonder why she seems to be intent on living until she is 100, because you could do with her money now. You are very poor now. You have many needs now. You want that money now. You are not for putting that off at all.
Then why should you put off the gift of eternal life and the riches of glory? Have it now!
Some of you are not sure whether you have the gift of God or not. Sometimes you think you have it, and other times you fear you don't. Don't tolerate a doubt on that subject, I implore you. Get full assurance.
If you were dying and there was a miracle drug which the doctor was offering you, wouldn't you want to know definitely whether it had been given to you or not? Could you tolerate the uncertainty of there being this great cure, but you were uncertain whether you had received it or not? ‘I must know. Tell me doctor, have I had it?’ So, lay hold of eternal life, for it is the gift of God through Jesus Christ. Get a grip on it. Know Christ. Receive him into your heart and life. Trust him. You have his word, He that hears my word, and believes on him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death into life.
There was an occasion in ‘Pilgrim's Progress’ when Christian was asking Hopeful about his acceptance of Christ and his salvation:
‘Did you go to God as you had been bidden?'
'Yes, over, and over, and over.'
'And did the Father reveal his Son in you?'
'Not at the first, nor second, nor third, nor fourth, nor fifth, no, not at the sixth time neither.'
'What did you do then?'
'What? Why, I could not tell what to do.'
'Had you thoughts of leaving off praying?'
'Yes, an hundred times twice told.'
'And what was the reason you did not?'
'I believed that that was true which had been told me.'
So Hopeful continued to pray until God gave him the answer of full assurance of salvation which he was seeking.
So it must be with you. Continue to lay hold of Christ until you know you have him as your Saviour.