When the encouraging cards cease to come, I still have a gift that will never be taken away.
Many of us have experienced it. The loss of someone we loved dearly. Sometimes the tears aren’t even enough to express the pain. Those who love you are eager to give you words of encouragement that assure you that they will be there for you. Those who don’t know what to say struggle to embrace you to show you just how much they care. Meals and gifts become physical acts of love needed at just the right time.
All of these things are such blessings, and are priceless gifts when we need them most. There is a gift, however, that outweighs them all. It is found in God’s Word.
“And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead.”
This gift of Jesus’ resurrection, His payment for our sins by His body, and God’s acceptance of this payment makes all the difference in the world! This gift of Jesus means that I will again see the one I’ve lost. This gift means that we not only have hope in this life, but that we also have hope in the life eternal with other believers. We are, in fact, not to be pitied.
Christ’s resurrection means that I don’t have to mourn that I will never see my loved ones again. I will see them again! So, when the tears aren’t enough, when the meals have been eaten, when the encouraging cards cease to come, I still have a gift that will never be taken away. That is the gift of Jesus, and His promise to unite us all together again for one big glorious family reunion with Him as our Father. And that, my friends, really is priceless.
