The Gift that keeps on giving

This English phrase may be strange to our International friends but we have used it for years, especially around Christmas and birthdays. The gift which has benefits that continue to repeat themselves for a long period of time is the ‘gift that keeps on giving’. Like a teapot but not like a box of chocolates!

In the time of testing when faced with temptations of many kinds it is important James says, to know that God is good. He is testing us because He is good. He does not tempt us for He is good. What He gives is good and what He brings lasts.

^“Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.” (James 1 v 16-18)

The sun, moon and stars (the heavenly lights) are always moving and changing their positions. Their variance is how they were created. But God is not like that. He is not in one moment offering good and then the next moment bringing bad experiences to you. He doesn’t have some winter period where the sun is not seen as much. He is constantly good. He is always good. He is the source of the good that comes to us. All the gifts that He brings to us are good.

There’s more. James has already explained that within the testing the lie of temptation is near. It isn’t from God it comes from our own ‘evil desire’. God has now given ‘us birth’. We have received His grace and His salvation ‘through the word of truth’. This is not the deception of temptation but the truth that sets us free within that testing to be ‘a kind of firstfruits of all he created.’ The Bible is full of this expression but it basically means the special, the chosen, to which God has redeemed us to be.

The testing period then does not need to result in us walking down the path of temptation. We are more than that. We are a chosen people and precious to Him. So within the testing that is who we are. The firstfruits of God to a world who need to know Him. God continues to give through us to a lost world. The Gift that keeps on giving.