Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17
We all remember the story of the little boy who gave his mother a baseball bat for her birthday. That was not the first nor the last gift that was inappropriate nor given for selfish or wrong motives. Marriages have broken up over gift that were different from what was expected. Disagreements among family members and acquaintances are often over gifts or the lack of gifts. Sometimes gifts turn out to be better or worse than the giver intended. A man I worked with once gave me, as a joke, a small remote-controlled toy police car. It was OK as a joke, but it turned out to be a wonderful plaything for my small grandchildren who spent hours with it and wore out many batteries. As humans, our gifts are not always good nor perfect. That is why we appreciate that God’s gifts are always good and perfect.
God is all about giving. The words gift, give, giving, and the like occur more than 2,100 times in the Bible. The first mention of giving is the giving of light in Genesis 1:15: ‘And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and it was so’. The term ‘gift of God’ occurs eight times in the Bible, along with one plural form ‘gifts of God’. In the Old Testament, the term referred primarily to material blessings. But in the New Testament, the term refers to spiritual blessings. Let’s look at them.
The first New Testament mention of the gift of God is the gift of Christ Himself: ‘Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water’ (John 4:10). The second is the gift of the Holy Spirit: ‘And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.’ (Acts 8:18-20) The third mention is the gift of eternal life: ‘For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Romans 6:23). The fourth mention is the gift of each Christian’s individual personal responsibility: ‘But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that’ (1 Corinthians 7:7). The fifth mention is the gift of salvation by faith: ‘For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God’ (Ephesians 2:8). And the sixth mention is the gift of confident love: ‘Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind’ (2 Timothy 1:6,7).
The last mention of giving in the Bible is in Revelation 12: ‘And, behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be’, So, from the Bible’s first chapter to the last, our God is proclaimed as the great Giver. So we give an Amen to the words of 2 Corinthians 9:15: ‘Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift’. -Jim MacIntosh