God "Unwrapped" The Good Gift

“Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.’ He told her, ‘Go, call your husband and come back.’ ‘I have no husband,’ she replied. Jesus said to her, ‘You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.’ ‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.’ Jesus declared, ‘Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.’ The woman said, ‘I know that Messiah’ (called Christ) ‘is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.’ Then Jesus declared, ‘I who speak to you am he’" (John 4:13-26, NIV).

In the sermon “God Gave Gift – So Desirable!” we realized that God’s “gift” is so attractive, so desirable than any valuable gift in this world.

It’s excellence is extra appealing, because it refers to the Creator of all the good things Himself – the Spirit of God – also called the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:19; 1 Peter 1:11).

We also read, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32, NIV.) God the Father gave His only Begotten Son – and His Spirit remains in the believer. Indeed we can refer to this “gift” as the “Good Gift” for Jesus said: “No one is good – except God alone” (Luke 18:19, NIV).

But if it’s really good then why do we read such verse as “Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: ‘We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since YOU REJECT IT and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles’” (Acts 13:46, NIV)?

Also, in the case of the two criminals with Jesus Christ in His crucifixion – both heard when Jesus called God, “Father… “ and asked that others would be forgiven (Luke 23:34, NIV). Both heard that He “saved others” and He “is the Christ of God, the Chosen One" (verse 35). Both also heard He was “the king of the Jews” (verse 37), but one of the them insulted Him (verse 39).

Could we really reject a good gift – especially the glory of the Good Gift – the value is incomprehensible?

Is it because of the so-called “Free Moral Agency” – which according to others is "the highest of all gifts" of God to men that we are able to neglect or even shun away God and pursue other interests and pleasures?

However, the Lord Jesus told the Samaritan woman, “If you KNEW the gift… and who it is that asks… YOU WOULD HAVE ASKED him (for the gift)…” (John 4:10, NIV.) If you really know the Gift and Giver – or if you know that the Gift is actually the Giver – you will not decline to have it; rather, you will yearn to have and ask for it!

He did NOT say, “If you knew the gift, you would be able to reject it!” or “… you could choose to go without it!”

We have to know the “gift” – to know that the gift is good -- in order for us to desire and ask for it.

The Great God, whom we identified as the genuine Good Gift, gave so much importance that we know Him.

We read in Jeremiah 9:23-24, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: THAT HE UNDERSTANDS AND KNOWS ME, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the LORD” (NIV).