"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16 KJV).
"In him was life; and the life was the light of men" (John 1:4 KJV).
My wife is a very curious woman. She loves surprises, but she works like Sherlock Holmes trying to uncover the mystery before hand. This makes surprising her at birthdays, anniversaries, and Christmas a real challenge.
Did I mention that I love a good challenge?
Some years ago I used the nested box trick to keep her guessing. I had bought her a pair of amethyst earrings and had them wrapped at the jewelers in a tiny gold box. After sneaking the gift in the house, I rushed up the stairs and selected a series of ever-larger boxes that she had laid out in the guest room (She used this room to wrap packages for Christmas every year).
I placed the tiny gold box inside a slightly larger box and wrapped it. Then, I placed that box into one larger and so on until I had a gift box the size of a microwave. To keep her from getting suspicious when she shook the box (She liked to sneak and shake the boxes under the tree to guess what was in them), I filled each box with newspaper and added a five pound weight from my barbell set for good measure.
"Good gracious! What in the world is in this box?" She asked after admitting her failed attempts at shaking and guessing.
"You haven't been sneaking and shaking boxes again?" I accused.
"Well, yes... I um... had to vacuum and I tried moving that big red box and it's really heavy. What in the world is in there?"
"Your Christmas present." I answered.
"Well, I can't imagine what it is." She continued with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Exactly." I said with a confident shake of my head.
By the way, I'm not the first to come up with this whole gift within a gift idea at Christmas. In fact, the very first Christmas, God gave us such a gift.
When you read John 3:16 in the original Greek, you will notice a clause followed by two dependent clauses. I love studying God's Word, not only does every word have meaning, but even the grammatical structure of its sentences reveal truth.
A simple expression of the structure of this verse looks something like this:
- For God so loved the world,
- that he gave his only begotten Son,
- that whosoever believeth in him
- should not perish,
- but have everlasting life.
Look closely at this diagram. Can you see the nested gift boxes from God?
The outer box that contains everything is God's LOVE. God's love is the motivating cause that produced the effect of the next, which is the gift of God's Son, who is the LORD. Inside the gift of the Lord Jesus is the gift of LIFE. This gift is available to "whosoever" believes in Jesus.
God has given us a gift within a gift within a gift. But there's one more surprise inside God's gift of life... LIGHT! Whenever the life of Jesus is received, the Light of the World shines forth.
LOVE - LORD - LIFE - LIGHT - That's the nested gifts that God offers us this Christmas!
When Robin opened the gigantic box on Christmas Eve and dug through box after box until she discovered the shiny earrings in the tiny golden box, she was overjoyed. That was a memorable Christmas for both of us. I love surprising my wife and she loves being surprised.
I think God must love surprising us too.
That'll preach! (Alliterative four points)
Posted by: Barry | December 23, 2011 at 09:58 AM