Regifting

Yes, it’s true. I’m regifting this year. In the current economy, it seems that regifting is more common than ever, but it is by no means new. The Christ of Christmas said, “You received without paying; give without pay.” So with the vast number of friends and family to whom I would like to give a gift, I’ve decided to join trend of regifting. The gift I have received is the gift of God – eternal life. It is the perfect gift for regifting. It is the gift that once you’ve received it you can regift it over and over again and still keep it for yourself. (Of course God, the original giver, continues to be the source of the gift.)

I love Christmas. But celebrating the birth of the Christ child apart from the reality of why He was born is empty and meaningless. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born in order that He might live as a man the perfect sinless life that no one else could ever live. And having lived that life, He was to die in the place of sinners. God, the universal Lawgiver and Judge, is holy and just. His justice demands that He punish lawbreakers, and all of mankind is guilty before the God to whom we must give account.. Yet He is merciful, and in His mercy he has determined to provide salvation in His Son, Jesus Christ.

When Jesus died on the cross, he died as a substitute for sinners. God, the Judge of all, transferred the penalty for sin to His sinless Son and punished Him. “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” The penalty for sin, if exacted upon sinners, would consign each and every one of us to eternal conscious punishment in hell. Yet the sinless God-Man suffered the full wrath of a holy God in one day on a Roman cross in Jerusalem, just six miles away and 33 years after His birth in Bethlehem. And three days later, as if to say, “I am satisfied with the death of My Son on behalf of sinners,” God raised Jesus from the dead. Now, because God has poured out all of His wrath for sinners on the Savior, all those who receive Christ have their sins forgiven and live forever with God.

This Christmas season receive the gift of eternal life. Stop trusting in your own goodness (you have none). Put your faith in the sinless Son of God instead. Repent and turn from your life of sinning against the Lawgiver and His law. Receive this greatest of gifts. And then you can regift it over and over again and still keep it for yourself.

Now tell me, doth this offend you?

Merry Christmas,

Craig Akin

P.S. Feel free to regift this post.