Excerpted from All is Bright by Nancy Guthrie

God is the most generous Giver in the universe, and he has given us the most valuable gift in the universe—Jesus himself. John wrote, “From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another” (John 1:16). God knows just what to give us, just what we need most, and that is Jesus. It is the greatness of this gift that prompts us to give each other gifts at Christmas.

But some people don’t realize how beautiful and valuable the gift of Jesus is, and so they never truly receive him.

Sometimes we are given a gift that we think is not really useful to us, and therefore we never take it out of the box. We stash it away in a closet or on a shelf somewhere in case we need it someday. Sadly, that’s what some people do in regard to Jesus. They want to keep him handy for when something comes along that they can’t handle on their own, but for now they have no interest in making him part of their day-to-day lives, and so they put him on the shelf. They simply don’t believe he is as good as the Bible says he is, and so they have no real or lasting joy in having received this great gift.

John wrote, “To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12, NIV). God has given us the gift of Jesus, but it is up to each of us to receive that gift, unwrap that gift, make that gift a part of our daily lives. To receive Christ is to recognize that he is the most beautiful, most desirable treasure in the universe and open up our lives to him, saying, “I must have him!”