The Greatest Gift

A received a really great book from the childcare workers at church for Christmas. It's about all the neat gifts we might receive for Christmas, but how the greatest gift of all is Jesus, who came to take away all our sin. It's an excellent little book and we've been reading it each night before bed.

This led me to a similar story in one of my favorite books, The Valley of Vision. It is a collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions which I believe I referenced at one time previously. Here's a wonderful exerpt to share with you about the Greatest Gift of all, Jesus.

O Source of all good,
What shall I render to thee for the gift of gifts,
thine own dear Son, begotten, not created,
my redeemer, proxy, surety, substitute,
his self-emptying incomprehensible,
his infinitely of love beyond the heart's grasp.
Herein is the wonder of wonders:
he came below to raise me above,
was born like me that I might become like him.
Herein is love;
when I cannot rise to him he draws near on wings of grace,
to raise me to himself.
Herein is power;
when Deity and humanity were infinitely apart
he united them in indissoluble unity, the uncreate and the created.
Herein is wisdom;
when I was undone, with no will to return to him,
and no intellect to devise recovery,
he came, God-incarnate, to save me to the uttermost,
as man to die my death,
to shed satisfying blood on my behalf,
to work out a perfect righteousness for me.
O God, take me in spirit to the watchful shepherds, and
enlarge my mind;
let me hear good tidings of great joy,
and hearing, believe, rejoice, praise, adore,
my conscience bathed in an ocean of repose,
my eyes lifted up to a reconciled Father;
place me with ox, ass, camel, goat,
to look with them upon my redeemer's face,
and in him account myself delivered from sin;
let me with Simeon clasp with new-born child to my heart,
embrace him with undying faith,
exulting that he is mine and I am his.
In him though hast given me so much that heaven can give me no more.