The Ultimate Gift

Many of us know what it feels like to receive a special gift. When you think about one that you’ve received, what made it so special?

Maybe it was special because you received it from a loved one. Maybe it was because it commemorated a special event or milestone In your life. Maybe it was because it’s one of a kind and cannot be replaced. Or maybe it’s because of a combination of all these reasons.

As special as that gift was, many of us also know that it cannot compare to the amazing gift we’ve received from God the Father through His Son Jesus. In Romans 5, Paul describes in great detail the gift of salvation and the many reasons that make it unlike any other gift we’ll ever receive.

Here are some of those incredible reasons:

• While we were God’s enemy, He loved us so much that He sacrificed His Son so that we could have a relationship with Himself. 

• This expensive gift of salvation is freely offered to everyone – regardless of one’s socioeconomic background. 

• When we accept God’s gift of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ, we enter a relationship of peace with the Father instead of one characterized by separation and hostility. We are forever saved from God’s just wrath towards sin. 

• God’s gift of salvation gives us access to His inexhaustible grace. 

• We’re able to rejoice during difficult suffering because we know it produces an enduring faith, godly character, and hope. 

• God poured His love into our hearts so that we can share it with others. 

• We also received the Holy Spirit who guides and protects us while helping us fulfill God’s kingdom agenda on earth.

As we meditate on these reasons and so many more, let’s praise and thank God for the ultimate gift He has given us! And let’s also look for ways to love and share the news about this gift with those who have yet to receive it.

For His glory,
The Heart Inspirations Team

 

Romans 5 (Excerpt: verses 1 through 11)

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

 
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (English Standard Version)