Gifts and giving are something we all know something about right from birth as we learn of the love and provision of our parents. Of course, we are only on the receiving end. It takes awhile before we learn o give gifts onto others. Birthdays come to mind more than anything else. Birthdays are followed by Christmas where giving and receiving are commonplace.

The gift giver is making available a gift to someone else who is to be the recipient of the gift. The person receiving the gift can not claim it until they do one thing … reach out and receive it … literally take a hold of it and possess it. The person giving the gift continues to hold it out for the recipient to to take it. Once the gift is received an exchange has occurred from one person’s hands to another person’s hands. That is a observable physical exchange, but there is also an unobservable exchange from one heart to another.

However, if the intended recipient never actually reaches out and takes the gift being offered no exchange takes place. The person offering the gift may want very much for the intended recipient to receive the gift, but if it is rejected the offer of the gift is for nothing. Most of us like receiving gifts and gladly reach out and take the gift being offered. It someone is trying to give us a gift and we decide that we don’t want it and reject accepting it most people would consider that an insult to the giver. They would have their feelings hurt! It might change their thinking about the person rejecting it. It would probably be taken as a personal thing. It is likely to affect their relationship forever unless something more happens to change this. It could indeed alter it considerably. It could even result in the two individuals becoming enemies.

Can you imagine taking all the money you had to buy a very expensive gift only to have it rejected? I mean like … wow! … that would be the ultimate insult.

Hey, I think I am onto something here! Not everything can be bought. God does not use money yet He gives good gifts. The greatest gift He ever offered cost Him dearly. He willingly gave and sacrificed His very own and very special and unique Son to pay the going price of your soul. Satan owns our souls. This is because of the sin in our lives. That sin separates us from God. We can not be in His presence because of sin. The sin problem must be dealt with. God certainly knows and understands this. And in and because of His great love for us He did something about it. He offers it as a gift to you. There are no strings attached. Like any gift the recipient must take possession of the gift being offered.

Millions have received His special gift yet by far most people reject His gift. We can reject His love gift, but there is a high price to pay if we do. In accepting His free gift there is a great exchange that occurs. He takes our unrighteousness from us and gives us His righteousness in exchange making us acceptable unto Himself. The English word righteousness simply means “right standing with God”. In our sinful state we are unrighteous and unacceptable to God.

All God asks of us is to acknowledge before Him that we are sinners and need His help and forgiveness. We must repent … be willing to change course and walk the opposite way away from sin and toward God and His righteousness. That must be the desire of our heart. HERE is some more about salvation.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation: that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”