“I Have a Gift for You!”
I awoke Easter morning April 5, 2010, hearing this: “Get up! I have a gift for you!” For a few weeks I had been reading 1 Corinthians 12-14. Therefore, I guessed the Lord meant He was going to grant me one of the gifts of the Spirit mentioned there.
I knelt and prayed with my palms open, waiting for the gift. When nothing seemed to arrive, I asked God for a verse of guidance. Jeremiah 7:14 surfaced in my mind. So, I looked it up: “Therefore, what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears My name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you and your fathers.”
My reaction was, “Huh?” Even after I read the whole chapter, I saw no gift in this lengthy warning that the temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed, because the Jews merely maintained the pretense of worship while continuing to act contrary to God’s will. Feeling desperate, I finally noticed the only other words on the page of my Bible. Apparently at some earlier date, I had jotted these words above the start of Jeremiah 7: Let Me into My temple and into your worship!
For the next few minutes I prayed for God to be welcomed into the hearts of the worshipers at my church on this Easter and the same for all churches everywhere. Then I personalized it: “Lord, come and make Your home in me, as You make me Your temple.” Upon praying that petition, I heard in reply these words spoken forcefully and exultantly:
I AM the gift!
I wept and rejoiced for I have no idea how long, His words tremoring through me like the aftershocks of an earthquake. The gift the Lord God had awakened me to receive was HIMSELF.
There is no greater gift! We love the Triune God not just for the gifts He gives us. We love Him for who He is. He is the Gift. All else is peripheral. When we have Him, we need nothing more. “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1).
You are the Gift! All other gifts are mere trinkets. When we value You above all else, all else falls into its appropriate place. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are to be eagerly desired (1 Cor. 14:1), but You are the Desire of all nations, and You are zealous for intimacy with us. Thank You for granting me this Gift this Easter morning, so that I cherish You above all else which You bestow.
Action Points
- Has God ever used something obscure, like a note jotted in a Bible, to grab your attention?
- In what ways have you learned that God Himself is more precious than any of His gifts?
This is an excerpt from Listen Up! a free, 79-page ebook about prayerful conversation with the Lord. To download, click on the format you want: Kindle / Apple / Google / Nook / Kobo / Generic / PDF