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The Gift: How to Keep Christmas Happy | Gifts That Last

A New Beginning / Greg Laurie
The Truth Network Radio
December 18, 2024 3:00 am

The Gift: How to Keep Christmas Happy | Gifts That Last

A New Beginning / Greg Laurie

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December 18, 2024 3:00 am

Do you remember a toy you got for Christmas that broke within hours . . . didn’t even make it through the day? How about the paddles with the rubber ball on a thin rubber band attached with a little staple? Yeah. Today we talk about a gift that can last into eternity. Glad you’re along for A NEW BEGINNING as Pastor Greg Laurie launches a series of messages to help prepare us for Christmas. And if you miss any part of today’s insight, go online to harvest.org.

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A New Beginning is the daily half-hour program hosted by Greg Laurie, pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Southern California. For over 30 years, Pastor Greg and Harvest Ministries have endeavored to know God and make Him known through media and large-scale evangelism. This podcast is supported by the generosity of our Harvest Partners.

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Pastor Greg Laurie recommends a great film about the 40th President of the United States. We have a movie that's going to tell you the story of this man who changed the world. Ronald Reagan was a man who believed in Jesus Christ.

You're going to be inspired by it in this brand-new film starring Dennis Quaid. It's called Reagan, and it's our gift to you for your gift of any size. Available on DVD and digital download at harvest.org. God's Gift to You, today's daily devotion from Pastor Greg Laurie. Our scripture reading today is from 2 Corinthians 9 verse 15. Thank God for this gift, too wonderful for words. There are gifts that you may receive this year that soon will be out of date or out of fashion. Some gifts, however, only grow in value over time. Maybe it's a family heirloom that you received a long time ago, and it has become even more precious to you now.

God has given us a gift, and it never goes out of style. It's the gift of all gifts, salvation. If you're a Christian, then you already carry this gift in your heart. Romans 6 23 says, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus, our Lord.

While this gift brings with it the hope of heaven and the hope of eternal life, there are aspects of it that we can enjoy now. One of them is justification. The Bible says, since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.

The word justify has a two-fold meaning. First, it carries the idea of the forgiveness of all our sin. Maybe you've been mulling over your sin and you're troubled by it. If you have asked God to forgive you of that sin and have repented of it, then he has forgiven you. God has forgiven you of every sin that you have confessed and turned from. Except that, often we dig up those sins, go over them again and again, and beat ourselves up over them. Yet God says, and I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.

Here's what you need to know. We should not choose to remember what God has chosen to forget. God has forgiven our sins.

That's part of the gift that God has given to each of us. But there's also the positive side of justification. When God justifies us, he places the righteousness of Christ in our account. That balances the moral and spiritual budget for us. We're declared righteous. This is not a gradual process. It's something that happens immediately when we put our faith in Jesus Christ.

And there's even more. Not only has God justified us, not only has he forgiven our sins and placed the righteousness of Christ into our account, but he also has adopted us into his family. By adopting us, God is saying, don't merely stand in awe of me. Come closer to me. I want you to be my child.

You have access to me anytime. What a great joy to know that we have been adopted into God's family. If all there was as a Christian was this life we have now with Jesus, it still would be worth it to be a Christian. But that isn't all there is. It'll get even better. The afterlife will be better than the before life. The best is yet to come. That's God's gift to you. Open it, enjoy it, love it.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-12-18 05:29:42 / 2024-12-18 05:31:28 / 2

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