We Can’t Help It — We Must Give — We Must Worship

“On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him.” The Magi (Wise Men) worshipped — and brought very costly gifts to the newborn King. The gifts were gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Not such practical gifts, but most definitely…valuable gifts.

A gold brick in today’s time is worth about $485,000. In the time of Christ, it would have probably been even more valuable. The spices (frankincense and myrrh) were also very valuable, and costly. Those gifts probably sustained the Holy Family for many years to come.

Love gives. “For God SO LOVED the world that He GAVE His only Son….” John 3:16. That’s what God does. He gives. When we love, we give. We just can’t help ourselves. He demonstrated His love. We demonstrate our love.

A few nights ago, my Texas Wallace family and I had our early Christmas together. I loved seeing my children and grandchildren’s faces as they eagerly opened their gifts from Nana. And, I loved the squeals of my granddaughter as she opened the onesie pj’s she had hoped for. And my grandson, as he opened his “survival tools” from his gift list that he made for Nana. He was over-joyed.

And, isn’t that joyful nature of giving and receiving straight from God’s heart?   A group of wise men once travelled far and long (two years) to give young Jesus some gifts.
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But Jesus gave them, and us, back so much more — an even greater gift.  He gave us the gift of a clean slate before God. He gave us the gift of forgiveness and a pardon from ever having to pay for the mistakes we made.

All we have to do is receive and take the gift. And once we do, we won’t be able to help ourselves — we will want to give back to Him in worship with everything we are and everything we have. We honor Him and worship Him. When we experience His love, we can’t help to be like the Magi — we MUST give and we MUST worship Him.