EVERY GOOD & PERFECT GIFT

James 1:17
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (NIV)

All goodness and absolute perfection can be traced back to One Source, Who does not need to acquire them, but is Himself the embodiment of them. If any goodness is given and received - if any perfect gift is given and received - its origin is not here below, but from above, being sent down by God just as He causes the heavenly lights to send their light down to this planet. Just as the heavenly lights shine their light down to penetrate this planet’s physical darkness, so the Heavenly Father shines His goodness and perfection down to penetrate this world’s spiritual darkness. He pushes back evil with His goodness and corruption with His perfection.

In His good giving, the Heavenly Father gives perfect gifts - not wages for labor, but gifts of grace, out of His love. Being the infinite embodiment of absolute goodness and perfection, His giving can be nothing other than good, and His gifts can be nothing less than perfect. The goodness of His giving and the perfection of His gifts do not ebb and flow, but are always at their absolute peak, because He does not ebb and flow. There is no variation or change in Him like the shifting of the shadows cast by the shifting of the heavenly lights. All He does and gives is locked into the track of His own unchanging character, and He is always as good as He can perfectly be.

If you are a child of the Heavenly Father, there is no dark side of Him you can be on, and He has planned for you the fullest measure of goodness and perfection that He can lavish on you. Let that realization help you have and give a merrier Christmas...especially to your own children, if you have them. As your Heavenly Father shines on you in His love, shine on those you love.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
(John 3:16 NIV)

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
(Romans 8:32 NIV)