While people often say it’s the thought that counts when giving and receiving gifts, most of us appreciate more the gifts which cost the giver the most. We know that when someone spends either money or time and effort on a gift, that gift is from the heart.

We exchange gifts at Christmas to acknowledge God’s gift to us, but many of us think the cost, or the sacrifice, involved in His gift doesn’t come until the crucifixion, when His beloved son suffered and died for us.

Perhaps I am late in coming to the realization that God’s sacrifice actually began the very night Christ was born. Up until that moment, throughout eternity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit were never separated, even for a single moment. I can only imagine the wrench to the Godhead when the Son limited himself to human flesh.

Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

Philippians 2:6-8 (NIV)

God’s gift of salvation to those who believe in His Son is the original gift that keeps on giving and the cost to the Giver began not with Christ’s death on the cross, but with His birth.

A Joyous Merry Christmas to you and yours!