By Rob Heverling (robhev@yahoo.com)

Psalm 100:5
For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Have you ever received something and didn’t deserve it.

Probably one of my favorite commercials this past Christmas was one where a girl was sitting in front of the Christmas tree tearing opening her gifts. She opens up this one gift and her eyes just light up and in that moment you knew she just got something she probably wanted for a long time but had to wait till this day to get.

After looking at the gift for about 3 seconds her appearance changes as she begins to recount the events of the past year. Apparently she had not been such a good girl. She looks at her parents and says “you spent to much take it back” Her parents look shocked as they ask her “what do you mean?”. She goes on to explain that over the past year she was not the best of kids and even goes as far to list some of the bad things she had done like forging notes because she skipped school, reading her sisters diary etc.. she doesn’t deserve the gift and they spent way to much and they need to just take it back.

Then there is a brief pause with the parents just looking at her and finally the dad breaks the ice and says “but honey we didn’t spend a lot on you” the whole thing ends with both parents looking at each other in silent victory and the girl sitting on the floor with this silly smirk on her face because she just told everyone some of the worst things she had done over the past year and still got something she didn’t deserve.

It can be a humbling experience when we receive things we don’t deserve.

I can remember times in my own life when people have given out of love because we were struggling and after just feeling like “God I don’t deserve this”. They’re were people out there way worse off then us but yet for some reason my family was thought of.

It’s one thing to receive gifts when we’ve been good, or generous, or even a hard worker those kind of gifts we will easily take and sometimes even expect. But what about when you have done nothing or when you have been rotten, miserable, hard to live with or lazy. Those are the times when we find gifts hard to take.

Maybe that’s why most people find it hard to receive the gift of God’s son. Because God gave that gift when we were at our worst. Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

He didn’t wait for us to deserve it and he didn’t try to cheapen it like the girls parents in the commercial. He sent the whole gift and he paid the whole price for us. One life for many lives Romans 5:19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. Because of that one sacrifice that Christ was willing to make on the cross all of us can have the gift of eternal life.

And what do we have to do to get it? Nothing, because it’s a gift Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The gift of the Christ is probably one of the hardest gifts for the people of the world to take because really we don’t deserve it and yet God sent him anyways. When were willing to humble ourselves and admit our mistakes like the girl in the commercial and come clean with God, then and only then can we share in this great gift that God has given. God is holding out his gift for you, all you got to do is believe it and then receive it. For one can’t truly have this gift unless they reach out and take hold of it.

John 3:16 “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.