The Gift Nobody Wants

There is a gift that nobody wants and yet it is the most important and valuable gift in all the world. It is a gift that most people think they already have or that they don't have a need for. WHAT IS THIS GIFT? It is the gift of salvation, through Jesus Christ... "For the wages of sin is death; but the GIFT of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." [Romans 6:23]. You may think you want this gift, but you will not want it on God's terms, until and unless God takes the initiative to reveal Himself and His Gospel (His plan of salvation) to you. Many people think they have this gift, this salvation, by being a good person, being in the right church, or by "believing in Jesus" (whatever that means to them).

Let's look at each of these ideas to see what God has to say about them...

1. being a good person:

"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one" [Romans 3:10]

"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." [Isaiah 64:6]

"For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." [James 2:10]

"For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." [Luke 19:10]

God saves spiritually lost people, those who need saving, those who are unrighteous. Everyone ever conceived needs saving. Even one sin was enough to get Adam and Eve kicked out of God's presence and similarly, one sin is enough to get a person condemned to hell for all eternity. We are all in a desperate situation, until and unless God saves us, by granting us a complete pardon for each and every sin we will ever commit. That pardon is not free either. It comes at great expense to God. Those who have received this pardon realize they owe Christ a debt they can never repay and so - out of thankfulness to God - they strive to live a life of obedience to Him by diligently studying the Bible and living their lives according to what the Bible says is a holy and god-glorifying way of life.

2. being in the right church:

"For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." [Romans 10:2-3]

" ... as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men... " [Mark 7:6-8]

We may think that our church holds the keys to God's kingdom, but God's Church is not some man-made building or some enormous religious institution that has its headquarters in Rome or anywhere else for that matter. God's Church consists of those people whom He has saved (given salvation to) . A person gets to heaven if God gives them a new heart and puts His Spirit in them: "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh." [ Ezekiel 36:26]

Why does God have to do this? Because our old heart is no good. It has a desire to sin and it doesn't even know just how sinful it is, nor how holy God is: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" [Jeremiah 17:9]

3. believing in Jesus:

"Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble." [James 2:19 ]

Devils believe in God but they are not saved, they have no love for God and they will not be in glory with the Lord someday. While it is true that we must believe in Jesus to get to heaven, it is crucial that we believe in Jesus the way He commands us to believe in Him. Our belief must also be in the true Jesus and not the Jesus invented by our church. When people are told the truth about "how" they must believe in Jesus, that is when salvation becomes a gift they do not want. And so, HOW ARE WE TO BELIEVE IN JESUS if we expect to land in heaven, and escape hell? With all our heart: "And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." [Jeremiah 29:13]

Since we are born with a sin-diseased heart that is in rebellion against God and His laws, we cannot properly believe in God until and unless He gives us a new heart. And since no church can do that and since no amount of good works can change a bad heart, we are entirely at the mercy of God. While we are alive, there is still time to repent and seek the Lord so that He might grant us a complete pardon for all our sins and that He might give us a new heart that wants to serve Him - on His terms - now and for all eternity. That is what I urge you to do today... "Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near" [Isaiah 55:6] If you really want to seek the Lord, read your Bible as if the eternal destiny of your soul depended on it. And ask God to show you the truth about yourself and your need for the one and only Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is able to save a person without any help from that person or from that person's church: "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." [Hebrews 7:25]

Do you have the gift that nobody wants? Do YOU want it?