Welcome to the Christmas Eve podcast on In Touch with Charles Stanley.

For most people, holiday preparations and gift exchanges come and go in a flash, but there is one gift you can enjoy forever.

Stay with us as we remind you how Jesus is your gift from the Father.

Of all the gifts that you've ever received, which one stands out above all the rest?

Is it something of great value to you today?

Well, what I've discovered is this.

Sometimes the gift that we think is so very important, something comes along and we realize there's something more important, something more valuable.

As you think about all the gifts that you've received, is there anything that you have treasured down through the years?

Or have most of those gifts just been something that's come along and you've passed them along and somewhere along the way,

you sort of lost your thrill about it all. Well, what I've discovered is this. People who know

how to give joyfully and abundantly, and abundance isn't the same in everybody's mind, but people

who learn how to give and know how to give and give joyfully and freely are the happiest people I know. There's something about learning to give because you see, that's what life's all about. Life's all about giving and receiving and loving, and people who are real genuine givers know how to love someone. And if you don't know how to love someone,

I doubt if you really know how to give them. And so when I think about the greatest giver of all,

I think about God that he is a continuous giver in our life. Always giving. Doesn't really ask

for a whole lot comparatively, but he's always giving. And the one thing that

he's given us above all the rest is what I want to talk about in this message. And I want to

title this message simply this, Jesus, a gift from the Father. And I want us to look at the gift.

I want us to look at many aspects of the gift, because I want you to appreciate having and experiencing and having a relationship with the most important gift that you'll ever receive, no matter how long you live.

And when I think about that gift, I think about what a tiny gift it was in its original giving.

And that is, it came, or he came as a baby, a tiny babe, transported in the womb of the Virgin Mary,

born in a very simple kind of place, out in a stable or a barn or a cave, whatever it may have

been that they used in those days. And so there did not appear to be anything very significant about

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