The First Gift Under Our Tree

What can we give to Jesus?


A few years ago we began a new Christmas tradition. Before anything else went under our tree, the first gift that was placed there was for Jesus.

We talk as a family about God's greatest gift for us...His Son Jesus. God gave us Jesus and that is why we celebrate Christmas. He is God's gift to us...but what can we give Him in return?

Each year every person gets a piece of paper to record what they would like to give to Jesus for Christmas. Looking back over the slips of paper it is fun to see the responses of our children and how their ideas of what to give Jesus have changed over the years.

When they were really little they would say things like:

• candy


• I will give Jesus a boat, and an airplane and candy.
  

As they have gotten older their responses have grown with them:

• my heart



• love



• worship



• thankfulness
  

Perhaps out of all these ideas, the greatest thing we can do in response to God's greatest gift is to receive it ourselves. God gave us the gift of Jesus, to save us from our sins so we could live forever with Him. It isn't enough that He gave the gift...we have to receive it, to take it, open it, and claim it for ourselves. If it stays unopened under the tree, our destiny will not be with the One who created us and loves us.

In John 3:16 it says, "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."

This Christmas it is my prayer for you that you will open the gift of Jesus and receive the gift of eternal life that God has for you!