{"id":432,"date":"2013-12-22T18:29:22","date_gmt":"2013-12-22T23:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/?p=432"},"modified":"2016-11-02T18:51:53","modified_gmt":"2016-11-02T23:51:53","slug":"the-perfect-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/2013\/12\/22\/the-perfect-gift\/","title":{"rendered":"The Perfect Gift"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: #363636;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 2px;\" src=\"images\/photo.jpg\" alt=\"photo\" width=\"240\" height=\"320\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: #363636;\"><span style=\"color: #363636; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;\">On the bookcase, where I can see it every day, is a little red box with a tiny blue bow.<\/span><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: #363636;\">A couple of years ago, my granddaughter gave me this little box at Christmas. She was so proud of herself as she told me that she had made it the week before in Sunday School.\u00a0 I opened it and inside, folded up and pushed into the box was a sheet of paper. On that paper was the story of Salvation and the verses-<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong><em><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:16-17<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #363636; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">The Gift. Wrapped in human form. Sent from Heaven to earth. Arrival announced by a great choir of angels. Whose presence graced the lowest, meanest place on the earth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: #363636;\">What happened at that moment was the giving of THE GIFT; the one Gift given by the Giver who knew exactly the right Gift to give.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: #363636;\">The Gift of exchange-One life for all others.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: #363636;\">It&#8217;s the only Gift that matters, the Gift that came to each of us is\u00a0<strong><em>for<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0each of us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: #363636;\">\u00a0When we give gifts to each other at Christmas, it represents the first gifts given to Him by the wise men.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: #363636;\">Matthew tells us that they followed the star until it stopped where Jesus was and\u00a0<span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong><em>\u201cwhen they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts\u201d.(2:10-11)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: #363636;\">\u00a0How do we keep the meaning of giving from getting lost in the shuffle of wrapping paper and tape?\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: #363636;\">The wise men gave their treasure. The only treasure we have to give to Him is ourselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: #363636;\">And, really? There\u2019s nothing else that He wants.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: #363636;\">The best part is that I didn\u2019t have to wait till Christmas to give that gift to Him or to take \u00a0the Gift He\u2019s given me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: Times; color: #363636;\"><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\">Neither do you.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the bookcase, where I can see it every day, is a little red box with a tiny blue bow. A couple of years ago, my granddaughter gave me this little box at Christmas. She was so proud of herself as she told me that she had made it the week before in Sunday School.\u00a0 &#8230; <a title=\"The Perfect Gift\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/2013\/12\/22\/the-perfect-gift\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about The Perfect Gift\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[25,75,11,155,48],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-god-with-us","tag-gods-gifts","tag-jesus","tag-redeemer","tag-salvation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":433,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions\/433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}