Gift (Received but not yet opened)
WORD PICTURE: GIFT (NOT YET OPENED)
Scriptural Reference: John 11:25 and John 14:6
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
1. Have someone(s) read the scriptures from various translations.
2. Using a wrapped gift box, demonstrate Jesus offering the gift to someone and that person saying yes. Show that this person just did all that is necessary for entrance into heaven for all eternity -- just accept the gift Jesus is offering. Even if you never open the gift, you still get to go to heaven because you’ve accepted it -- it has gone from Jesus’ hands into yours.
3. My sharing, offered to spark sharing by others.
What I Shared
The tragedy of September 11th had just occurred, which heightened my gratitude for my salvation, as I thought of people who had faced death so unexpectedly. I was keenly aware that anyone could die that suddenly, and how profoundly grateful that I had decided to decide about Jesus.
Come near to God and he will come near to you. is what God says in the Bible (James 4:8). But I didn’t know that at the time I started to seek God ever so slightly, deigning (ever so slightly) to set my feet toward a church, if only to ask the minister a few cynical questions, one of which was about the Trinity.
“What is this about the Trinity anyway,” I said, “I don't get it!”
To which this kindly soul replied, “I like to think of it as the book, the author of the book, and the influence of the book.”
“Hmmm,” I thought to myself. But by the time I arrived home, it was as if blindfolds had been removed from my eyes. Suddenly I was seeing an egg -- shell, yolk, and white -- separable yet one at the same time. Then water came to mind, then steam and ice. It occurred to me that I might -- just MIGHT -- have been wrong in dismissing the Trinity as a fairy tale, a crutch for emotional cripples too weak to walk in the real world.
As my Palm Sunday inquiries progressed, similar doubts (about the virgin birth and the resurrection and all the rest) fell by the wayside. I felt as though I were walking down a spiritual road, literally shedding my opinions like rags at various points along the way. By Friday, I felt as though I was, myself, hanging on that cross. My self-righteousness had been crucified. And by Saturday, I felt as though a new person had arisen from the grave. For the first time, I understood the word “resurrection.”
Later, on Easter morning, I encountered the third verse of Psalm 60 that talked about “the wine of astonishment.” Well, that was the day I drank it. I also remembered back to Exodus 15:2 saying, The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. It was amusing that God brought me down the most classical road of Biblical tradition -- not some creative new idea, but right smack down the road to Damascus. At which point I wrote to that minister, the one who had cleared that first big boulder from my spiritual path, telling him on Easter Day that many of my questions and doubts have simply dissolved, that his metaphor about the Trinity had pried open my gate, my fast-closed door, that -- all week, I had felt the walls just tumbling down. I told him that I had experienced the death of my own, personal opinions. And that I had come to believe that “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again” because He did -- in me.
That is how the Lord came to be my salvation, my strength, my song. He just stood there holding a beautifully wrapped gift. If I had died that day, I would have gone to heaven. All He needed was for me to say yes, I accepted the gift. I didn’t even have to unwrap it.
Conversation Starters
So -- how did you come to see that Jesus was offering you the gift of heaven? Or have you?
All Scripture references from the New International Version of the Bible (NIV).
Copyright by Whitney McKendree Moore, May 2002