My husband has an uncanny memory when it comes to gifts we’ve received. I’ve been desperately purging our house of unnecessary kid clutter now that our “little years” are behind us—but my donation pile keeps getting raided by his endearing attachment to anything gifted to our kids… the toddler-sized T-shirt, the board book, the Christmas ornament, to name just a few.
But this lovable trait isn’t really about the gifts themselves. It’s an expression of how deeply he values the givers.
It’s not that I don’t value the gifts or the loved ones who gave them. But I tend to express my joy and thanks in the moment and then I quickly get swept back into the distractions of daily life. Gratitude fades faster than I’d like to admit.
This summer, he and I are traveling to Greece, Italy, and Turkey to see the sites of the first churches mentioned in the book of Acts. I’m sure we’ll bring home a few gifts for the kids from our travels.
But as I’ve been studying Acts in preparation for the trip, I’ve been struck by a gift I’ve already received from that region, even though I’ve never been there.
No, it’s not imported aged cheese.
It’s a gift much older, and infinitely more enduring:
God’s Word.
What has moved me so deeply in studying Acts is realizing just how much persecution the apostles and early church endured to preserve this gift. Stephen was stoned for preaching the good news about Jesus. Peter and John were jailed and beaten. Paul was stoned and left for dead in Lystra, beaten and imprisoned in Philippi, nearly torn apart by riots in Ephesus, and shipwrecked on his way to Rome. And not long after that, under Nero, believers were tortured and killed—some even burned alive as “garden lamps.”
Yet through all of this, they continued proclaiming Christ and faithfully preserving the Scriptures that would one day reach us.
Their sacrifices revealed not only their love for God, but also their love for us. They knew the value of the gift, and so like Jesus, they pressed on through persecution “for the joy set before them.”
And because of their endurance, two thousand years later we have the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ written down for us—not casually, not hurriedly, not just “so we get the gist.” But meticulously preserved, giving the Bible the strongest textual integrity of any work of antiquity. And here in the U.S., we now have virtually unlimited access to it.
These saints paid an incalculable price so that we could know the immeasurable affection and costly grace of Jesus. And they did so knowing that God would make their suffering worthwhile.
So, what we doing with that gift?
Are you—like I so often am—initially grateful, but then quietly forgetful?
This isn’t meant to be a guilt trip, but a gut-check. Much like my husband’s example, one of the truest ways we honor the gift-givers is by treasuring their gifts… and there’s not more costly gifts than God’s Word and the salvation it tells us about.
So ask yourself:
- What have I given a place of high value in my life—and why?
- How can I routinely elevate God’s Word as the costly gift it is instead?
- What cost am I willing to pay so that the next generation knows the priceless gift of the Gospel?
The early church paid dearly to place God’s Word into our hands. Let’s be a generation who refuses to let that sacrifice gather dust. Let’s read it. Teach it. Share it. The gift is ours—and it’s our turn to steward it well, so the next generation will know the great gift of Jesus.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)
