Area Leadership Message
The Perfect Gift
I love this special time of year. I love being with our families more often, the increased focus on caring for each other, and the emphasis on giving rather than receiving. But most of all, I love that at Christmas, the world turns its attention to the Saviour, Jesus Christ, and to His birth.
Gift giving is everywhere. We know from the New Testament that the Wise Men, upon hearing of the long-prophesied birth of the Messiah, travelled great distances to visit the child Jesus. Not only did they journey for years to see Him, but they also brought valuable and meaningful gifts. They gave the best they could. As we approach this sacred time of remembrance, I ponder what kind of gift I could bring to the Saviour.
The Perfect Gift Giver
God, our Heavenly Father, is the perfect gift giver. He knows what we need before we even ask. He prepared the great plan of happiness for us and gave us the gift of Jesus Christ to fulfill it.
Whilst on the earth, Christ himself taught us about this perfect gift giver. In Matthew 7, He asked this question: “What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?” (Matthew 7:9).
Christ then explains what kind of gift giver our Heavenly Father is: “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good gifts to them that ask him?” (Matthew 7:11).
The Perfect Gift
What gift does a perfect gift giver give? Surely, they would give a gift that is truly needed and one we cannot simply acquire ourselves. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” that we may believe in Him and “have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
This priceless gift for every person who has ever come to earth, and surely everyone needs this gift of Christ.
The Saviour’s universal Resurrection gives to all the gift of immortality, while His infinite Atonement gives us the gift of eternal life and exaltation. By making and honouring sacred covenants, Christ’s gift allows us to live eternally with our families.
A gift at an exquisite price
Though freely given to all through the gospel of Jesus, these gifts came at an unimaginable price. We read of the great price paid by the innocent Lamb of God on the cross at Golgotha and in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Christ describes this great price in His own words: “which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit” (Doctrine and Covenants 19:18).
As we reflect on the gift giver, the nature of His gift and the exquisite price paid for it, we naturally consider what kind of gift we could bring to the Saviour.
Let us treasure the Gift of Christ
In our home we have a print with the motto from the coat of arms for the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland: Pro tanto quid retribuamus, “For so much what shall we repay?” This is taken from Psalm 116:12: “What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me.”
I feel like this phrase expresses how my heart feels towards the Saviour and for what He has done, does do and will yet do on my behalf.
I pray that in this busy season, we all take a moment to pause and reflect with gratitude on the gift of Christ, given to us by our loving Heavenly Father, so that we can return to Him.
Elder Patrick Kearon of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles emphasised, “Everything about the Father’s plan . . . is designed to bring everyone home.”
May we ask ourselves, “For so much, what shall we repay”?
With our focus on the ordinances of the sacrament and the temple, let us more faithfully keep our covenants, and give this gift to the Saviour this Christmas.