Your Christmas Gift to Jesus
By Rick Warren
“I don’t want your sacrifices—I want your love; I don’t want your offerings—I want you to know me.” Hosea 6:6 (TLB)
Imagine that your friends throw a birthday party for you. Everyone brings a gift, but instead of giving them to you, they give them to each other! As strange as that sounds, it happens every Christmas. We give gifts to everybody except Jesus.
You may be saying to yourself, “God already has everything! What could I possibly give him?” Or you may think you don’t have anything worth giving.
God doesn’t want things from you. In Hosea 6:6, God says, “I don’t want your sacrifices—I want your love; I don’t want your offerings—I want you to know me” (Hosea 6:6 TLB). Here are several things to give Jesus this Christmas that he can’t get from anyone but you.
Give him your trust. God will never force you to trust him. Faith is always voluntary. You have to give him your trust. And then God will work in your life based on your faith in him. Jesus says, “According to your faith let it be done to you" (Matthew 9:29 NIV). The more you trust him, the more he is able to do through you.
Give him your heart. The Message paraphrase says, “Open up before GOD, keep nothing back; he’ll do whatever needs to be done” (Psalm 37:5). God wants every part of your life. He wants you to say, “God, I’m opening up my life to you—the good, the bad, and the ugly.” When you do that, God promises to help you mature into who he created you to be.
Giving God your heart also means giving him what you love, value, and treasure. In fact, Jesus says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:34 NIV). God isn’t just talking about your money. He doesn’t need your money. He wants what it represents—anything that is more important to you than him.
Bring others to him. God wants everyone in his forever family. It’s the reason he sent Jesus: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16 NKJV). God wants you to tell others about Jesus. The Bible says: “Go out into the country lanes and behind the hedges and urge anyone you find to come, so that the house will be full” (Luke 14:23 NLT). This Christmas, be a star and a light that guides other people to Jesus.
Jesus wants these gifts, and he can’t get them from anyone but you. But he won’t force you. Despite the rush and activities of the season, stop today to consider what gifts you will bring to Jesus this Christmas.
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This devotional © 2018 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
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