I was reminded the other day that gift-giving involves more than the act of offering someone a present; receiving that present is just as important. Until both halves of this transaction have been completed, no gift has been given.
 
It was such a simple reminder.
 
Each year at Christmas, I give my friends at the nursing home small gifts – mostly mere one-size-fits-most tokens of my esteem. This year, that meant exotic (but attractively priced) hand lotions from our local Tuesday Morning store.
 
Everyone received these little gifts gladly, thankful to have been remembered – with one notable exception: A dear friend I’ll call Theresa. She was very apologetic, but said that she’d already received several enormous bottles of lotion from various friends and just didn’t have room for another.
 
It was perfectly understandable; storage space is in short supply in a nursing home. I said I understood and would give her gift to someone else who had nothing more than standard-issue institutional lotion.  She thought that was a fine idea, and a few minutes later I went off to do just that.
 
Theresa had not received my gift, so it had not become hers. 
 
This is a fair analogy for what happens when people refuse the free gift of eternal life that Jesus offers every human being – that is, the gift of being transformed into His heaven-bound child, a metamorphosis made possible only because He paid our sin debt in full when He died on the cross almost 2000 years ago.
 
If we don’t receive this gift, it does not become ours.
 
Unfortunately, there are many people who have rejected eternity in heaven simply because they have rejected this gift. That would include those who think they’re shoo-ins because they were born to Christian parents, or attend church when it’s convenient, or believe (oh so sincerely!) in a higher being who goes by another name – Allah or Kali or Bahá'u'lláh, to cite just a few examples. It would also include those who refuse to believe in the gift's existence or singular efficacy.
 
According to the demonstrably true Bible, if you want to become a heaven-bound child of God, you must receive the free gift of Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross. As the apostle John wrote, “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.  He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:10-13).
 
Fortunately, receiving Christ is not as complicated as some would have you think. It doesn’t require a lifetime of good works, suffering and sacraments; nor does it require membership in any particular church. It simply requires repenting of your sin and trusting in Jesus to have paid your sin debt in full.
 
Have you received this most important gift of all?
 
If not, please don’t wait. Learn more about it here. Then grow in your new faith by studying the Bible faithfully, if possible getting help and direction from a Bible-teaching church grounded in solid biblical doctrine.
 
Theresa was sorry to have to reject my Christmas gift this year, but I’m glad she did. What an excellent reminder she gave me of the critical importance of receiving the only gift that really matters – the gift of eternal life that Christians celebrate every Christmas, and every day of the year:
 
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." -- John 3:16

There’s this woman I used to party with years ago, back in college. She's fit, funny, attractive, and one of relatively few people from my bad old days who has remained friendly with me in spite of my Christian conversion. I don't know why she has. It's quite possible that she doesn't have anyone else. 

I do know that she has spent her entire adult life in a desperate quest for all-out, unequivocal, absolute and unshakable love. She hasn’t found it through multiple marriages, motherhood or grandmotherhood. Nor has she been able to find it in a steady procession of girlfriends, boyfriends and one-night stands. 
 
She has glimpsed it over the years in her cats, she has said, admitting reluctantly that their love is not exactly unconditional. She would have come closer by getting herself a dog. But she doesn’t like dogs. Too dirty. Too much work. Too demanding.
 
She took her search to a Bible church for a while right after 9/11. Not to worship God or learn more about Him, she pointed out at the time, but to find some new friends among these allegedly unselfish people.

Alas, she didn’t like anyone she met there because they only wanted to talk about Jesus and the Bible. And we all know what that means:

“Bo-ring!”
 
The irony is that the object of her quest has been sitting right there in front of her all along. She has simply refused to acknowledge it.
 
I have tried to explain it to her in different ways – most recently, two weeks ago in a little yuppie coffee shop near the zoo.
 
There are at least four Greek words for love, I pointed out this time, with agape being the one she is seeking. It is God's love -- unconditional, sacrificial, a reflection of the fact that He IS love (1 John 4:16). He is the only one capable of providing it, I said. And He has done so, by:

• Paying for mankind’s sins on the cross, so that anyone who repents and trusts in Him will be redeemed to live with Him in heaven for all eternity
• Sending the Holy Spirit to dwell in the hearts of His children, in order to transform, comfort, and lead us in the way of all truth (John 16:13)
• Providing us with His inerrant, inspired word to help the redeemed live and thrive in His love no matter how dire their circumstances may be

 
My friend was silent until she heard my last point. “What nonsense,” she said then. “The Bible is just a bunch of writings by dead men.” (Emphasis on the word “men.” She is an unapologetic feminist.)
 
I tried to explain that the Bible is a love letter from Him to us, the means by which He tells us who He is and who we are. It is, I added, the door to eternal life in heaven with Him, because Peter said we are born again through the Word. "And after all," I added, "Jesus said that unless we are born again, we cannot see the kingdom of God." 
 
She rolled her eyes. "There are many different interpretations of that idea."
 
"The Bible tells us what it means," I said. "Do you want to know what it says?"
 
"No." 
 
Her face was getting red. Okay, so she wasn’t interested. She wanted me to shut up.  
 
Got it. I bit my tongue for all of 20 seconds.
 
But then I couldn’t help myself. “What about those beloved grandchildren of yours?” I asked. “Will they be fine just as long as they believe what you believe?”
 
“Yes,” she hissed in a feline-esque warning for me to back off.  
 
“Is that so?” I said a quick, silent prayer for her and felt my own rising irritation dissipate.  “How do you know? What is your source of authority?”
 
It was too much for her. “I have to go,” she said, grabbing her things and storming out the door.
 
She left without paying for her coffee. And without letting me get to my point. My fault – I’d let myself charge down a rabbit trail again.  
 
What I picture myself saying to her is this: “There is a source of unconditional love in this world. It is highly imperfect, inconsistent, subject to sin. But it exists nevertheless.”
 
“What is it?” she always asks eagerly in my fantasy about this conversation.   
 
“Chances are you've come face to face with it many times,” I reply, “in the hearts of born-again believers – including, perhaps, those you met at church so many years ago. I know you didn’t like them, but maybe you could give them another chance. Their passion for Jesus and the Bible makes them the very people who are most capable of giving you agape love.”

​(I think, but do not say, "And maybe what they have would rub off on you.")
 
Sadly, this particular fantasy never ends well. She always gets mad at this point and leaves in a huff.
 
“Stop!” I call out to her. “Can’t you see that you're cutting yourself off from the very thing you seek?”
 
But she’s just not ready to listen. She may never be. And what an eternal tragedy that would be.  

​The news media’s love affair with everything “trans” continues. From transsexual, transgender and transwoman to transman, transvestite and transvestic fetishist, all are considered objects of celebration, the outworking of unprecedented courage and fidelity to self.  
 
But hold on, Fourth Estate! You’ve totally overlooked the one form of trans-ism that transcends the material, transforming the heart of every man, woman, boy or girl who embraces it: the transspiritualism of the born-again Christian.
 
Consider: When a new Christian repents, trusts in Christ and is therefore “born again through the word of God which lives and abides forever” (1 Peter 1:23), the Holy Spirit not only saves him for all eternity, but also changes him immediately into a new creature in Christ – a new creature whose goal in life is to become more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ.
 
So where are the cheering journalists? Where are the TV documentaries and sit-coms and reality shows celebrating the transspiritist?
 
They’re nowhere to be found, of course. Why is that?
 
It can’t be that there’s a shortage of subjects. There are tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of born-again Christians living in the U.S. at this very moment, and most are eager to share what God has done in their lives.
 
Could it be that you can’t see such a heart-and-soul metamorphosis at a glance, and so have no before-and-after photo ops? Ah, but observe your transspiritists a little longer, reporters, and ask witnesses to comment on their lives. You’ll learn that their characters have been utterly transformed – that his rage has been replaced by peace, her selfishness by self-sacrifice, their self-righteous judgmentalism by compassion, his tight-fistedness by an unearthly generosity.
 
Not that it happens overnight. Just as it takes some time to change bodies and wardrobes, it takes the rest of each heaven-bound transspiritist’s life for the Lord to accomplish His objectives in his or her life. But there are landmarks along the way, as one stronghold after another falls to the power of the Holy Spirit. And anyone who has experienced these changes will be happy to tell you all about them.
 
Alas, thanks at least in part to the mass media, this trans-group has remained little more than a misunderstood and much maligned minority. Come on, journalists – the scoop awaits you! I’d be delighted to share my experience with the first ten reporters who call or write, and to refer you to many others with even more dramatic stories.