Tis the Season for baking cookies! Recently, my sister and I planned to get festive during our regular hang out time. We were going to have our normal dinner and coffee, but we thought it would be fun to also bake some cookies and watch a Christmas movie. We baked the cookies first so that they’d be cool enough to eat right after dinner. My daughter, of course, wanted to eat the cookies BEFORE eating her dinner. I explained that she needed to wait and not spoil her appetite. The wait was just too much for my five-year-old, and a meltdown ensued.

At first, I felt it was important to stand my ground, firm in the reasonable rule of waiting and the lesson of listening, but then, I paused… and thought maybe there was another lesson to be learned here. A lesson in grace.

I took her tear-filled face into my hands and asked her if she knew what grace was. She shook her head, and I explained that it’s when we get what we don’t deserve. I asked her if she thought she deserved a cookie, and she sadly said “no.” I told her that tonight, I was going to show her a little grace; that even though according to the rules she shouldn’t get a cookie, she could have a piece of one now. I handed her a bite of a cookie, and I will never forget her face of joy and wonder in receiving a taste of grace.

When I was trying to think of something “Christmas-y” to write about, I kept coming up empty until this moment. Christmas is a story of God’s gift of Grace.

Although we did nothing to deserve it, God sent His Son to be born, with a plan and a purpose in mind. He extended His love and grace toward us, offering a plan of salvation.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” John 3:16-17

“ For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people” (Titus 2:11 NIV)

This unmerited favor is truly a gift. If we got what we deserved, the Bible says the wages of our sins is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23). And there’s nothing we can do to even try to deserve or earn this gift. Ephesians 2:8-9 says it is “by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

While justice is necessary, sometimes offering grace is greater than imparting punishment. We all fail and are in need of grace, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), but thankfully God has allowed us to be ” justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). Just as God has bestowed His grace upon us, may be also show grace to those around us.

This Christmas, as we unwrap our presents, may be reflect on the true reason we celebrate and remember God’s wonderful gift. May we remember when enjoying the cookies and sweets, that sometimes we all need a taste of grace. For the perfect present isn’t the one wrapped in fancy paper placed under the flawlessly decorated tree; it’s the tiny baby that came wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. It’s the One that brought grace, with you in mind.