Our Daily Bread 15-Day EditionSample

Costly Gift A Rolex watch is one of the finest timepieces made. Many people would jump at the opportunity to own one. That’s why my friends who recently traveled abroad thought it would be fun to pick up a few of them to give to their children as souvenirs. Souvenirs? Yes. You see, these watches were “knockoffs”—imitations of the real thing easily passed off to tourists at ridiculously cheap prices. The ones Denny and Carol chose for their family members did have a slight difference from the ones you would buy at a fine jewelry store—the name on these watches was spelled R-O-L-E-X-X. Few things of value are inexpensive. Fewer still are free. But salvation— the most important gift of all—is free. Unlike the imitation Rolex, salvation is of infinite value. Yet it is free because, as one hymn reminds us, “Jesus paid it all.” No one can earn salvation (Eph. 2:8-9). We need only to believe and receive the gift of eternal life that God offers (Rom. 6:23). It’s a paradoxical truth that while salvation is free, its cost was great. Oswald Chambers wrote, “Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony at Calvary.” Anyone who teaches something else is simply pushing a “knockoff” of the real thing. — Cindy Hess Kasper Oh, how great a gift Jesus gave to me! Lived a perfect life, died upon a tree; Not for me alone has He paid the price, But for all the world by His sacrifice. — Hess Our salvation was infinitely costly to God, but it is absolutely free to us.