Read the following piece by Keith Wishum and see if it causes you to recall that toy that you once really wanted for Christmas.  Do Wishum’s conclusions match your own?

I got what I wanted for Christmas!

More years ago than I care to calculate, way back when I was 8 or so, back in the B.C. era (before computers), I wanted a special toy for Christmas.  Wanted is too weak.  I craved.  I coveted.  I had to have a Johnny 7 gun.

The 7 was the ultimate imaginary killing machine.  It fired seven different ways - single shot, machine gun, rocket launcher, grenade thrower, and others I have long forgotten.  Not only did the 7 make awesome noises, it came with projectiles that it really fired.  What more could a boy want?

Long before Christmas, I hinted.  I begged.  I pleaded.  I despaired.  Knowing that my parents were highly practical people, I had little hope of ever holding a 7 in my hands.  A bike, you could ride to school.  But what real use is an expensive plastic assault weapon?

Yet, on Christmas morning, I got what I wanted!  A real toy Johnny 7, right there in my living room!  Just what I wanted!

It was what I wanted, but only for a little while.  The Johnny 7 soon bombed.  Sure, it made great noises, but the white bullets were soon lost in the shrubbery.  The grenades landed on the roof.  The machine gun attachment broke, and the gun was too big and bulky to carry easily.  Within days, I had reverted to using sticks for guns.  The 7 was shot.

I learned from the 7 experience.  I discovered that toys of this world are really not worth very much.  They are feeble and fleeting.  I also discovered that, without doubt, I was loved.  Nothing else could explain why the hard-labor children of sharecroppers would spend scarce cash on a silly toy they knew I would soon discard.

If we approach Christmas (or any other time) hoping for happiness in a new toy, we will be disappointed.  But we may be delighted if we look for and, more importantly, give love.  It is not what lies under the tree that brings joy.  It is what lies in the hearts closest to you… and in your own.

Wishum is right, isn’t he?  What matters most is to love and be loved.  And, the greatest Gift of love is that “God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).  He died for us so that we might live, eternally.  “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

God will save from sin and give eternal life to those who place their faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from their sins in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and are baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38; 22:16).  God will continue to cleanse from sin those who continue to walk in the light of His Word (1 John 1:7).

This Christmas, my prayer is that we will all recognize that the greatest Gift is the gift of God’s love through Christ AND that each of us will respond to that love by giving our lives to Jesus.

Won’t YOU?

-- David A. Sargent

* From “Get What You Want for Christmas” by Keith Wishum in A Word from Williams Road (12/19/17), a publication of the Williams Road Church of Christ in Americus, GA.

David A. Sargent, Minister

Church of Christ at Creekwood 
1901 Schillinger Rd. S.
Mobile, Alabama  36695

Archived issues of Living Water can be viewed and accessed from our website at: www.creekwoodcc.org