GOD'S GIFTS

No, I haven't discontinued my series Lessons of Christmas. The remaining lessons concern groups associated with after Jesus' birth. Therefore, today I'd like to focus on blessings or, as I like to call them, God's gifts.
In a few days, the majority of us will be be opening presents given by friends and loved ones. All to often we miss the most important gifts of all; the ones given to us by God. His most precious gift is Jesus. "For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believed in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16, NIV. However, God gives gifts to us every day. Some people call them blessings. Personally, the word "gift" seems to be more applicable this time of year. Those totally unexpected, unexpected, unexplained events which happens that benefits you. Money, healing, a car moving just in the nick of time; any one of many occurrences that occur in our daily life.
Many times we attempt to explain them away or they go by completely unnoticed because we are not in the habit of looking for them. Unfortunately, all too often we are like children. On Christmas morn the children are excited to open their presents. They gleefully, thankfully receive them. They are overjoyed. And then, time passes. We go into their room or their play area and there the once treasured gift lays on the floor, dirty, broken, sullied, forgotten. Or we may be the child who absolutely must know how a toy works so he takes it apart and there it lays strewn all over the floor, unable to be put back together again. The healing we prayed for over and over, the answer to the long asked why He finally answered, the relationship He healed, the marriage He healed, the job He guided opened the doors to, and the list goes on. Which one are you?
From this moment forward, when we receive a "gift" from our Heavenly Father let's not fling it aside, tear it apart, or allow it to gather dirt in the recesses of our life but thank Him for it, tell others what He gave us. It is these experiences that comprise our "story", our testimony of how Jesus or God interacts with us in our life. It is one of the many reasons we know Jesus is our Savior.
This Christmas if you haven't accepted God's most precious gift, Jesus, I pray this Christmas you will  accept him as your Savior. Marry Christmas!! Happy Birthday, Jesus!! See you next week with another Lesson of Christmas--The Magi.