Expensive Gift

[snopes]

The birthday of my son was close and I had spent days wondering what I would buy for him as a birthday gift.

I decided to check out a department store and browsed through the toy section. I could not really make up my mind on what to buy. Just as I was about to give up, I saw a toy motorcycle and I knew I had hit the jackpot! My son loved motorcycles and would appreciate this toy as a birthday gift!

On the day of his birthday, I presented the gift to my son and boy, did he love it! Nothing interested him any more but his 'Okada' (name given to motorcyclists in Nigeria). That same day however, the motorcycle and its plastic rider met their untimely end. I was upset, could not imagine why Praise just would not handle the toy with care. I told him I wasn't going to get him another gift but of course that was just to make him feel sorry. But like the typical 2–year-old he was then, the motorcycle toy was soon forgotten and he shifted attention to the other toys in his possession.

How many times have you heard that salvation is free? The Bible says that the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus (Rom 6:23) A gift is free to the receiver but to the giver, it costs something. Just like it cost me money to buy the birthday gift for my son, so also it cost God his only begotten son to give us salvation freely.

Let us remember that the saviour of the world came as a very expensive cost to God. Jesus Himself had to give up everything – His glory and divinity so that you and I could have this salvation freely.

The danger in receiving a gift, something you didn't pay for, is that there is the tendency to trivialize it. Just like my son didn't think much of the toy motorbike after the damage had been done, so also many Christians trivialize the salvation we received. The reason is because we do not appreciate the enormous cost Christ had to pay to redeem us from the curse of the law.

Jesus paid for our salvation with His own life - that is something we dare not trivialize. Let us share the great news of God's wonderful gift to all mankind. The greatest gift of all!