Gifts?

I'm doing a small Christmas devotional, about the "12 Days of Christmas"... not sure how insightful or helpful it will end up being... but stuff to think about nonetheless. :)

The first one was about the greatest Christmas gift of all -- the birth of Christ.

If you read Romans 5:15-17, it talks about Adam's family (haha! :P) or Christ's family. Adam's family is the physical family, that deals with sin, etc. But being born into Christ's spiritual family... we have forgiveness and eternal life. My favorite part of my footnotes (what I took this last little part from) says: "If we do nothing, we receive death through Adam; but if we come to God by faith, we receive life through Christ. To which family line do you now belong?"

Christmas has become such a big thing about gifts and presents. But we've seemed to almost forgotten the greatest gift of all... or, the greatest-gift-giver of all.

"This is Christmas: not the tinsel, not the giving and receiving, not even the carols, but the humble heart that receives anew the wondrous gift, the Christ."
- Frank McKibben