Speaker: Darlene Sala | Series: Encouraging Words | I’ve told you before how much I admire my pastor friend Eric Denton, who every Sunday night takes a group to Los Angeles to feed the street people and pass out jackets to those who need them to stay warm.  But one December evening was special.

A man was standing alone on the street finishing his dinner when Pastor Eric approached him and asked if he would like to have the jacket he was wearing. The man looked like he had won the lottery as Eric slipped off the warm down jacket and helped him get into it.

But then a beautiful thing happened. Placing his hand on Eric’s shoulder, the man surprised him by saying, “I’ve got a son who’s 25.  Every day I’ve wondered what I could get him for Christmas.  I think this jacket would fit him.  It would be a perfect Christmas present!

As he walked on, Eric couldn’t help thinking that the man’s son will never know the price his father would pay that winter to go without this jacket–that there’s hardly a gift that could rival it in loving value.

How like Jesus’ Christmas gift to us! Jesus was willing to come as a helpless baby, experience life as we experience it, and then be stripped of his seamless robe and die an agonizing death on the cross to pay for our sins.

The Bible tells us, “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15).