Sermon Central
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God Gave You A Gift – What Do You Give Him In Return
Contributed by Arsenio Segismundo on Dec 27, 2021 (message contributor)
Summary: Christmas is over and I guess you have already received a gift or have already given one.
Topic: God Gave You A Gift – What Do You Give Him In Return
By Ptr Arsenio “Jack” Segismundo
Text:
“To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,”
Introduction:
Christmas is over and I guess you have already received a gift or have already given one. Christmas is all about Christ. God gave a gift to mankind for their redemption; and that is Christ.
We are used in a practice of exchanging gift. God gave you a Gift. What do you have for Him in return?
I hope you do have a gift to God this Christmas. But what can we give to God? God have already told what He wants from us.
The following may be your gift to God.
I. The Gift of Your Life - Holy and acceptable to God
Rom 12:1
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”
Presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice to God is our reasonable service because He already owns us. Therefore, this “living sacrifice” is an act of surrender to God as Lord and Savior over our lives. This is the act of sanctification of our lives — the growing in holiness by knowing Jesus and living according to His will and ways.
Christ gave His life for you. Can you give your life back to Jesus? From the moment we give our lives to God, the Holy Spirit gives us the power and desire to live for God. He changes our "want to." As we submit ourselves daily to Him, pray, read the Bible, worship, and fellowship with other Christians, we grow in our faith and in our understanding of how to please God.
“18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To Him be the glory both now and forever. “
Give your life to God. Surrender it to Him, The path God wants for us may leads to a different direction from the one we would choose.
“13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.”
Jesus knows the purpose for which He created us. Discovering that purpose and living it is the secret to real happiness.
To follow God in this life there's a lot of sacrifices to be made. Some things we even have to give up because in order to follow God completely, we have to give up our own fleshly desires. Will you follow God even if that means giving up your dream job, going to parties with friends, sacrificing your own time to spend with God? Even though some people might think you are strange, we should focus on God more than everything else.
II. The Gift of Our Riches –
God did not bless to raise your standard of living but to raise your standard of giving. Whatever we have was given to us by God, so we have nothing at all that was not first given to us, so why would we ever boast about it?
“7 For who [a]makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”
We are not our own since we were bought with a price,
“19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body [a]and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
And so if we share what we have, it’s good to know that it’s not ours to begin with. God owns everything. We’re only stewards of God’s blessings but He expects us to share these blessings with others.
III. The Gift of Your Love –
“And you shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart and from your whole soul and from your whole mind and from your whole strength.”
What does it mean to love the Lord from our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind, and our whole strength? Do we even have the ability to love Him with our whole being like this?
Love God with all your life. How hard it is to give ourselves to God. When we are born again, we become new creations in Christ Jesus,
