On my twelfth birthday I got a video game as gift from my father. This was a very precious and non rivaled gift. The make was a Micro Genius and it was a direct competitor to brands like Nintendo, Sega and Atari. All I needed to play games configured for other video game brands was a converter. This gift made me and my house very popular on my end of the street. I remember vividly how many children known and unknown trooped to my house because they wanted to play a video game. As the commander in chief of the “game zone” I determined the people whom I would give access. As a child I thought this gift would last forever so I guarded it jealously.
As years pass many more different versions of video games have been produced. Many more will still be produced, because technology improves every day. My obsolete Micro Genius is at best a relic of the past’s glory. Some of the children I flaunted my “priced asset” for are now adults with children. They are now wealthy enough to buy dozens of better configured games for themselves and their children. This birthday gift was so limited in nature like any other gift subject to man’s ever changing whims. There was never a need for me to guard it jealously.
As I thought of the limited nature of this human gift by my father on my twelfth birthday, I saluted the gift of Eternal Life given to Christians by God on our birthday into His magnificent kingdom of Life with awe (John 1:12, James 1:17-18).
Our birthday gift is unrivaled, precious, incorruptible and unlimited in nature (1Pet.1:23-25). This gift transcends the physical and eternally upholds us in the embrace of the divine (1Pet.1:3-5). The manufacturer of this gift is not man so the gift isn’t subject to any changes (Eccl.3:14, Rom.11:29). God is unchangeable in nature and is the same from everlasting to everlasting (Heb.13:8). The access and illuminating prominence this gift gives to Christians can’t in anyway be compared to the transient and dwarfed prominence associated with humanly crafted gifts.
Humans keep on coming up with new innovations to celebrate their limitations, but we have a God who doesn’t need to come up with new innovations – God is unlimited, unfathomable and incomprehensible (1Tim.1:17). This very nature is deposited in the life of the Christian because we are God’s temple (1 Cor.6:17).
Every Christian has the unspeakable gift of the Holy Ghost (2 Cor.9:15). We have the very life and essence of God. I admonish that we all live with this mentality.
– Emeka I. Ofia
