Back in the seventies Kodak Company launched an advertisement campaign for their Trimline cameras with the motto “Kodak cameras. The gift that keeps on giving.” Actually, the ad wasn’t unique to Kodak. They weren’t even the first to use it. But a camera perhaps best represents the idea behind the slogan.
A gift that keeps on giving is one that continues to elicit the feeling of pleasure the person first felt when receiving the gift. It is a gift that gives joy over and over, rather than only one time.
Cameras capture moments, and some of those frozen moments carry as much impact (and sometimes even more) as the moments themselves. The recipient of the gift gets the joy of receiving this technological wonder at the time of unwrapping, and then receives joy time after time through its use as moment after moment is immortalized and later re-viewed.
In Jesus, the Father gave us a gift that also truly keeps on giving.
“For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to be its judge, but to be its savior.”
John 3:16,17
In Jesus we have the joy of having a broken relationship with God repaired; of having lost intimacy restored; of having our debt of sin not only forgiven but forgotten; of having certain death replaced by eternal life! And I don’t know about you, but I get a tremendous amount of joy from knowing that I am not under the constant scrutiny of a cruel judge, but rather under the protection of a loving redeemer.
Many people approach their salvation as if they are on probation, and eternal life is theirs only as long as they successfully fulfill the requirements of their test run. If they fail to fulfill the terms of their probation, then heaven becomes something permanently out of reach. I’m not sure who they think is keeping score, but it certainly isn’t God! It says right here in John that Christ didn’t come into the world to judge it, but rather to save it.
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” Romans 8:1,2
I remember the night I became a Christian. I was completely clueless to born again type theology, but I had just gone to a church service with an old hippie friend of mine who had “gotten born again” and turned from drugs to going to church. During the service I had heard about turning your life over to Christ and turning away from a life of sin. I didn’t know what sin was, but I was certainly tired of the life I had been living. Nothing happened at church, even though I went up to the front and got prayed over.
But I went home that night, and I prayed a prayer. I prayed “Lord, if You will show me that You’re real, then I will commit one hundred per cent of my life to You.” No sooner had the prayer left my mouth than I was “born again” and in that moment several things were revealed to me.
I realized that God is, and that it had been sin that was preventing me from knowing God and His very personal involvement in my life. At the same time, I realized that my sin had been forgiven and that I was accepted and even loved by God. In effect I had realized the truth that “there was now no condemnation” levelled at me. All this was mine, and all had been given to me as a gift from the Father all wrapped up in Jesus’s birth, death, and resurrection.
And every day that I wake up to a new day here on earth and see my wife and my family, my opportunities, my successes and even my failures, I thank God for giving me the gift that keeps on giving ceaselessly, lovingly, eternally. And I’m thankful that there is nothing more special about me than anyone else. God is pleased to give this gift to all who sincerely desire it. One needs only to sincerely ask.
Please ask.
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