When my kids were younger and I returned home from my many travels abroad, they would always run to the door to greet me, and their first question was, “Did you bring home anything for us?” They were looking for a gift from their daddy. Gifts are very important in a host of circumstances, as you all are well aware. It is big business to sell gifts, and wrap gifts, and deliver gifts. One gift can change a whole atmosphere or relationship by 180 degrees. There’s a proverb that says, “A man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before great men” (Proverbs 18:16). Speaking of being brought before great men, when you tour the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin, something you’ll see there are all the interesting and costly gifts given to President Johnson by foreign dignitaries. No doubt, their gifts made the way pleasant for them to come before the President of the United States.

Well, the God of the universe who wants to have a relationship with us humans is also well acquainted with giving gifts to the creatures who were made in His image and likeness. He wants to gain our hearts and fill us with Himself. By becoming a man in His incarnation and shedding His own blood to pay the price for our sins, God “gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life” (John 3:16). In His resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45) as a drink for us (John 7:37-39; 1 Corinthians 12:13)—the very cup of salvation that King David made reference to in the Psalms. As King David considered all that the Lord had given to him, he asked, “What shall I return to Jehovah for all His benefits toward me?” (Psalms 116:12). He recognized that the most profitable thing he could do for God was to continue to receive what the Lord would give to him: “I will take up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of Jehovah” (Psalms 116:13).

Today, Jesus Christ is this very Jehovah God. The name Jesus literally means Jehovah the Savior, or, the salvation of Jehovah. May we all take God’s gift to us by calling upon His name, because the Lord is rich to all who call upon Him, and, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:12-13). “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). And don’t forget Romans 11:29—“For the gracious gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”