“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights…”

They say that if you live long enough — and I’m getting there! — you can see trends return.  I remember the time (I’m seriously dating myself here) when bellbottomed pants came into fashion.  They looked so radical, so different, so…cool!  If you were caught wearing “straights,” boy, you were a fish out of water, a total reject, a prime-time loser.  These days you can see bells, straights, baggies, stovepipes, you name it.  You can even see pants that don’t fit and hang so low (on males) that you can see what they’re wearing under their pants!  Fortunately, most are wearing something else, but that’s another issue.

So yes, trends do come and go with time.  One trend that went but I don’t see returning anytime soon is customer service.  In a word, it’s gone!  I don’t know exactly where.  And I don’t see any indicators that it’s coming back anytime soon.  I hope I’m wrong.  A friend of mine recently shared that he made a request of a paid employee to do what she was paid to do.  With a grump, she said, “You owe me in blood!”  My friend replied, “But you’re paid to do this…it’s your job.”  No matter.  In today’s world, it seems everything has a price tag, a string attached, or a disgruntled employee to endure.

Hopefully this won’t jade our ability to understand the character of God, especially as it relates to our text.  James says that God is the one that gives us “good and perfect gifts” (1:17).  In fact, he’s the only one.  This ought to catch everyone’s attention.  Who doesn’t like to receive gifts, especially “good and perfect” ones?  But there is much more here than thinking that God is all about gift-laden affairs like birthdays and Christmas wrapped up into one.

James begins his letter with a theme about trials, saying we should count them “joy” (v. 2) definitely not the best way to start a letter.  What is he, a sadist?  That’s a big turn-off right away.  But he quickly adds the idea that God will “give generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him” (v. 5).  Then he says that God will give “the crown of life” (v. 12) to “the man who perseveres under trial,” because to endure the trial means that he “love(s) him.”

Then James shifts the topic to temptation, separating God from it and evil as much as any passage in Scripture does.  He hangs the responsibility for both squarely on man’s shoulders: “but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed” (v. 14).  Did you get that?  Every person wants to sin because the desire is already present.  From there, the inevitable spiral downward described in verse 15 rapidly hits warp speed.

Against this backdrop James talks about “every good and perfect gift.”  Actually, we have two different words in the Greek for “gift.”  The first speaks of the quality of the act of giving as good.  The second word speaks of the gift itself as being purposeful, good, effective in producing the desired effect of the gift.  James then makes no mistake describing the giver: “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (v. 17).  James is appealing to the creation week in Genesis 1.  There we find that God made the light “good,” vegetation “good,” lights in the sky “good,” land and sea “good,” seafaring animals “good,” and land animals “good.”  And when it was all done, it was “very good” (v. 31).

What this means is that only God gives in such a way that the act of giving is inherently good in and of itself.  This speaks volumes of the character and nature of the giver, where there is no variation between Giver and gift.  It follows then that every gift is given to bring about good in one’s life, to move them forward, to bless them.  Think of this in terms of Jesus, God’s “indescribable gift” (2 Cor. 9:15).  Jesus is the perfect embodiment of both the act of giving and the gift itself.  He completely represents the Father’s nature and character, as well as becoming the sacrificial gift to purchase our salvation.  Speaking of the great sacrifices made by the Royal Air Force, in WW 2, then British Prime Minister said in August, 1940, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”  How much truer is this of Jesus as God’s gift?  It doesn’t get any fewer than One.  And how many owe so much too him?

Do people around you see and/or sense the Giver’s character when you give gifts?