[Tuesday's Devotional] - Kipper's Present

I’ve lost my copy of the book "Kipper’s Christmas Eve" by Mick Inkpen, but in it Kipper says:

 

“Which is best, Christmas Day or Christmas Eve?...Presents or expecting Presents?”

 

If you are given a pair of socks for Christmas, (as I frequently am), I understand they are given in love; that the gift is symbolic of relationship.  There are thousands of books and research papers on the symbolism, meanings and protocols of gift giving.  Kipper’s question opens a whole field of study for the psychologist and anthropologist.

 

My mother used to recall an acrostic sermon from when she was a little girl, GRACE, Gods Riches At Christ’s Expense, Grace being her mother’s name, (the other she often quoted was JOY – Jesus, Others, Yourself, as that was her name).  Gifts can be symbols of a future commitment, such an engagement ring - or in the case of a wedding ring, a symbol of a current covenant.  Grace is a gift of both current covenant and future promise.

 

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast” 
Ephesians 2: 8,9 [NIV]

The gift of Grace has to be the most precious gift there is, but it also stems from a relationship:

“ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”.  John 3:16 [NIV]

God’s love for us, his relationship with us, expresses itself through Jesus, the act of selfless giving – that Christ died for us, is expressing a relationship of love.  How do we respond to that gift, how do we respond to the relationship with God?  How do we express our love to God for the priceless gift of grace?  I think it was Karl Barth who said,” Let your Theology inform your Doxology “– let your understanding of God inform your worship of him

And when I think that God, his Son not sparing,
Sent him to die, I scarce can take it in,
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!

Father, How great thou art!

 

Guy Mowbray