How to Open the Greatest Gift Ever

In the workforce, you have to have a lot of faith. You have to trust your equipment, your training, your colleagues. You have to believe your leaders are looking out for your good; that your assignments are right and useful to the cause. You have to have faith that the organization you are working for is worthy of your sacrifice.

The belief and trust we exercise in our work is a small model of the faith needed to live the Christ-follower’s life, to believe that God offered his Son to us in the form of a baby named Jesus. Jesus’s great love reached past the barriers of our sin so he could live with us, and then die for us. He lived the perfect, sinless life we were not able to live. Then he took the punishment we deserved. God made a way for us to be brought into his family, adopted as one of his own.

And just as we hope our children will love and accept the gifts we offer them at Christmas, God wants all people everywhere to accept the gift of Jesus’s life given for us. He entreats us to believe in the Giver and in the gift, trust it is for real and for us, and take it for ourselves.

God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn its people. He sent him to save them! No one who has faith in God's Son will be condemned. But everyone who doesn't have faith in him has already been condemned for not having faith in God's only Son.

John 3:16-18 (CEV)

We accept God’s gift of Jesus by faith. And when we believe him, we receive forgiveness of our sins. We are set free from the shame and guilt that weighed us down. We hold the joy of certainty we will have eternal life.

So where are you? And where are your kids on this faith journey? As we see the exchange of gifts all around us, it’s time to consider whether we have accepted God’s gift; and ask our children if they are ready to do so also.

PRAY

Lord, I have to trust so many fragile entities. How much better it is to trust in an unfailing God. Please help me and my children believe and accept this unbelievably great gift of Jesus. Amen.

TIME TO TALK

Conversation starter for kids: Provides you with questions and prompts to facilitate a time of applicable discussion with children to lead them towards knowing God and His Word more deeply.

Question(s): Do you believe in Jesus? Do you believe he can forgive your sin?

Apply: Talk with your kids about what it means to accept a gift by handing them a wrapped item such as a piece of candy or chapstick, having them take it, open it, and choose whether to use it.

KEEP IT GOING

Related passages: These additional verses will help parents expand their Scriptural knowledge and place on the armor of God’s Word to tackle each day.

Matthew 1:21

John 1:12-13