The Bible tells us that God is the best gift-giver. James 1:17, Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. God’s gifts are good and perfect. In this way, God’s gifts are a reflection of His character. He gives good and perfect gifts because He is good and perfect. God always gives His gifts in love.

And in Jesus, we see the ultimate gift — a gift that is good and perfect, given in complete love. Perhaps you remember John 3:16, For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

This time of year, you see a lot of graphics like this, pointing to Jesus as the greatest gift. We see it so much it almost becomes kind of cliche.

I wonder if we really believe this, though.

Do we really believe that the greatest gift is one that we cannot buy?

Doesn’t that fly in the face of all the consumerism and materialism of our age?

When we really believe that Jesus is the greatest gift that we could ever receive, we live with a greater sense of contentment as a counter to that consumerism. That will address some of what plagues us: our disillusionment, our frustrations, our longings for more.

When we really believe that the gift of salvation is the greatest gift we’ve ever received, we’ll want to share that gift with others. We will want to point others to this same gift so they can enjoy it, too.

Do we really believe that without Jesus, we would be lost in our sins?

Do we really believe that apart from Jesus, we can do nothing — as Jesus Himself says in John 15:5?

And do we really believe that if we have Jesus, we have already been given every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms as it says in Ephesians 1:3?

Do you really believe that Jesus is the greatest gift of all?

Listen to this bold proclamation of the Good News from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians:

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge … so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

1 Corinthians 1:4-9

Paul speaks of God’s grace — this is the free gift we receive in Jesus. This is the ancient gospel, the Good News that has been proclaimed for two thousand years. It is not something we can earn or merit or purchase on our own, lest any man should boast. It is God’s gift precisely because it was given to us. Gifts are not earned. Gifts are freely given. And this great gift that we are acknowledging here is the gift of God’s grace, God’s mercy, God’s forgiveness. This is the gift of having the slate wiped clean, the gift of a fresh start.

Isaiah 1:18, Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow.

And this gift of grace enriches our lives, as Paul points out in verse 5. It’s not simply a promise of “going to heaven someday,” although it surely is that. But it is so much more, too. The grace of God is a gift for today just as much as it is a promise for tomorrow. Our lives are rich with His blessings, with peace and joy, hope and love. Paul’s point here is that God has enriched our lives by giving us everything we need in Jesus. God cannot bless us any more than He already has by giving us what He has given us in Christ.

He doesn’t say, “in some ways He has enriched us” or “in many ways.”

He says, “In every way.”

Psalm 23:1, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. We can say this when we recognize how rich our lives are because of the riches we experience in Jesus.

To believe that we are lacking in some way is what we call a scarcity mindset. It’s believing that we don’t have enough so we act out of a sense of insecurity. But Paul says that we are lacking nothing.

Remember when COVID first hit and we all went out and bought up all the toilet paper in town? That was a scarcity mindset. What if they run out of toilet paper and we have to live like animals? I still have one pack of that toilet paper in my garage. Saving it for the next pandemic, I guess.

Satan played on this scarcity mindset in the Garden of Eden, convincing Adam and Eve that God was “holding out” on them, that there was something they were lacking. But if we really believe that Jesus is the greatest gift, then we see that our lives are not lacking in any way. We have been given everything we need.

Why does God do this. The answer is in v9:

God is faithful. The story we find in the Scriptures is the story of God’s unfailing love. God will not abandon His creation to destruction. He will not give us up to the evil one simply because we have sinned. No, in Jesus, God has made a way for us. He has defeated sin and death and the devil himself. God is mighty to save, faithful to the end.

That is why Jesus is the greatest gift.

Do you believe it?