I have two boys that are absolutely amazing! It is so much fun to watch them explore, learn and grow. I love the wonder that swells in their eyes as they experience something new! As I’m sure any parent can attest to, there are a couple days a year where this is most easily observable.
I remember a few years back when our first son, John, was 2 years old. Every child loves the twinkle of Christmas lights and I’ll never forget the time we purchased a little 3-foot pre-lit Christmas tree for his room. When we brought him up into his room for bedtime with his little tree set up in front of the window his little face lit up brighter than all the Christmas lights in our city! He was so captured by the colorful lights on a simple little plastic tree that he never wanted to leave his room! That little tree has been a seasonal night light that he now gets to share with his little brother, Jude, who points and says “On!” when he sees it. On a side note, it is the kind of wonder and joy from my boys that reminds me to slow down and take life in. It reminds me to be present and share life with them!
-John after getting his very own Christmas tree Dec. 2016.-
Then of course comes Christmas morning! If you’ve ever done Christmas with toddlers, you know it’s an adventure. Toddlers can be totally unpredictable when it comes to receiving gifts. You can go for the latest and greatest, must have, door buster, thing-a-ma-jig that promises to teach your two year old ‘advanced Python Programming Code in a fun and interactive way’ or you can go for the old stacking rings and alphabet blocks that we all had as children and you know exactly what your child is going to spend the most number of hours playing with…
THE BOX IT CAME IN!
The same Christmas that we got John his own Christmas tree, I remember him spending most of the morning playing in the amazon box we used to wrap the gift in. I don’t even remember the gift that was in said box! He would put all the wrapping paper he could get to fit in the box and then he would climb in and throw it all out. Over and over and over again.
“I paid a lot of money for that gift and you’re just interested in playing with the box it came in?” It’s perfectly acceptable for this concept to go over a child’s head. There would be some serious questions if I gave my wife a beautiful diamond necklace and she haphazardly set the necklace aside and started to use the clamshell jewelry box for entertainment, showing all her friends this handy little box her husband got for her! It sounds absolutely absurd when you put it like that, doesn’t it?
What if that happens a lot more frequently than we could imagine?
You’re probably familiar with John 3:16 which says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” This is not a foreign discussion that God gave us the gift of Jesus so that we could be with the Father. It’s a scripture that almost every Christian can recite from memory. God gave you a gift. That gift is salvation in Jesus Name.
You’ve been given the gift, you’ve “unwrapped” it by confessing your sin and your need for a Savior. I think that many Christians are satisfied with having Amazon Prime salvation which comes quick and is totally reliable, but they never open the box up and use all that has truly been given to them. They receive the gift but never open it.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I am absolutely NOT diminishing the gift of salvation. I’m just suggesting that we haven’t explored the depths of it enough. I know there was a time where I was perfectly satisfied with having received salvation in Jesus Name, but I took for granted all that He wanted to give to me ON TOP OF that salvation. I share in my testimony that I was saved in Honduras while in high school, but it would be another 14 years before I opened that gift and found out what was inside of that Salvation. It’s not just about what I had been saved from. I had been saved from Hell and eternal separation from a loving God and Father. It’s also about what I was saved IN TO. I learned that I was saved into an intimate relationship with the Father through faith in Jesus Christ.
All that is required of me to receive and open that gift is to believe that it is mine in Jesus Name.
But what then? Is that it?
What is belief? Well, according to Websters dictionary Belief is “to accept something as true.” True belief is displayed not in simply confession of that belief. By that I mean, just because you say it doesn’t necessarily mean you truly believe it. True Belief is displayed in action. The sum of our lives are the actions we take as a result of the beliefs we confess.
Jesus himself speaks to the action behind belief. In John 14 He says that we will not only do the same things he does, but we will do greater things! (John 14:12) Jesus is saying this in the Upper Room before He was arrested and crucified. The disciples had followed Him for three years and watched Him heal the sick, open blind eyes, quicken the lame bodies, and even raise the dead man, Lazarus. Even at this point in history, the disciples had walked in miracles before the Holy Spirit had come (Matthew 10, Luke 9). And Jesus is now saying, “Yeah, those things you saw Me do, and the things you did too, you’re going to do greater things, bigger things, more miraculous things when I send the Helper.”
After Jesus was crucified, died and was buried, and He conquered Hell and rose again defeating death He was sitting with His disciples before He ascended into Heaven. Mark 16 records this conversation that the risen Jesus had with His disciples.
“And he said unto them, go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” – Mark 16:15-18 KJV (my own emphasis added)
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