No Returns, No Refunds, No Recalls

Monday - December 27th

Scripture to Read Today: Romans 8:31-39

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He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Romans 8:32

After thinking I had heard all of the fun Christmas songs recorded before I was born and throughout my lifetime, I came across an odd Christmas song a few years ago. In 1953 ten-year-old Gayla Peevey sang "All I Want for Christmas is a Hippopotamus." A fan so loved the song that he gave Gayla a real live hippopotamus as a Christmas gift that year. Gayla named the hippo "Matilda" and kept her for 47 years. Gayla thought she had found a perfect home for Matilda in 1998 when Disney's Animal Kingdom opened in Orlando.

Unfortunately, Matilda died of a heart attack while being transported to Animal Kingdom. Peevey was crushed and talked about what an odd and yet wonderful gift the hippo had been to her nearly five decades earlier. She said she had received some incredible gifts from family and friends over the years, but nothing ever topped getting a hippo for Christmas when she was ten.

Maybe you received a gift this Christmas that you plan to return to the store. Perhaps it didn't fit, wasn't your style, didn't work, or you already had one. Return lines at stores can be quite long by December 27th. Sometimes making plans to return a gift can create a sense of awkwardness between the giver and the recipient. But, returns and refunds are very common this time of year.

God has given us His very best in His Son - Jesus. Romans 8:31-32 emphasizes this gift of Christ will never be taken away from us and will never fail us. Because of God the Father's willing sacrifice of His only Son, we can never be cut off from His love. Therefore, there are no returns, refunds, or recalls on the gift of Christ to us as His followers.

God's gift is perfect. God's gift fits us all perfectly. God's gift is a gift of eternal love. The result of that love is that God gives all that we will ever need in life. He gives us all things.

God's loving gift of Christ to us can never be returned, refunded, or recalled - He is the eternal gift!