They Gave Them To Me And I Have Not Opened One

Four of them have your name written inside the cover.

That is what makes this stack different from an ordinary pile of unread books. One says happy birthday and the year. One is from your sister and has a sentence in it about why she thought of you. One came from somebody at work who does not know you very well and got it right anyway.

And you have not opened any of them, and every time you see the stack you are not thinking about reading. You are thinking about four people.

Because a book you bought and did not read is between you and yourself. A book somebody gave you and you did not read is between you and them, and that is a completely different weight and it is the one you are carrying.

Two things are not coming here, and you have met them both.

Nobody is handing you a list. Not a title, not an author, not a genre, and no shelf of what a man ought to have read by now. Being handed one has never once opened a book, and mostly it adds one more thing to be behind on.

And nobody is saying one word about your phone. You know about the phone. Everybody knows. Being told again by a stranger returns nothing at all.

What I want to look at is the transaction, because you have got one running that nobody else in it has ever heard of.

They gave you something. You have turned it into something owed.

Every good gift is from above

There is a sentence in James 1 about where gifts come from, and the second half of it is the part that settles a debt.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. (James 1:17, King James Version)

Look at the movement in it. Cometh down. That is the whole direction of the verse, and it is one way.

Nothing in it goes back up. There is no return leg, no receipt, no expectation described anywhere in the sentence, and the giving is complete in the coming down.

You have givers who did not turn, and two years on a shelf have never once cooled anybody who loved you. His Spirit is in that room now, which is why James 1:17 forecloses even the shadow of turning in the one who gave it.

And then the reason: with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. The Giver does not change according to what happens next. The gift does not become conditional retroactively depending on what the person did with it.

That is what a gift is, in that verse, and it is the same shape at a birthday table.

You are holding four completed things, and a gift you have not opened has never once turned into a debt. James 1:17 has the giving come down with no return leg described anywhere in the sentence, and the Holy Spirit is the one saying that over four covers with your name in them.

There is one more phrase and it is the strongest one.

No shadow of turning. Not even a shadow. The verse forecloses the possibility that the Giver's disposition shifts, and it does so in the strongest terms it has available.

You have a Giver who does not turn, and an unopened gift has never once cooled the person who gave it. It is written with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning, the sentence rules out the shift rather than merely discouraging it, and the Spirit of God is saying that plainly here.

You are the only one running the ledger

Here is the mechanism, and it is worth putting plainly.

Your sister does not think about that book.

She thought about you in a shop for about four minutes, she wrote a sentence in the front of it, she handed it over, and she was pleased. That was the whole event for her. It completed at the moment you took it.

For you it did not complete. It opened an account, and the account has been accruing for two years, and every time you walk past the stack the balance gets mentally checked.

The account has one member. Nobody else knows it exists. And the reason nobody else knows is that it is not a real obligation, it is a construction, built out of gratitude and a certain amount of dread about being asked.

You are the only person keeping this account, and four gifts have never once been an outstanding balance. James 1:17 has the giving complete in the coming down with nothing described going the other way, and the Holy Spirit is present with a man carrying a ledger nobody else can see.

And there is a second thing, and it is the reason the books stay shut.

The dread is specific. It is the possibility of being asked, at a table, whether it got read. And the reason that is dreadful is not the answer, it is that the answer would tell them their gift missed.

So the books cannot be opened casually, because casual is not a safe posture toward an object with a person's feelings attached. And they cannot be opened seriously either, because serious means a project. So they sit.

You have four books nobody is auditing, and a question at a table has never once been the reason a book had to stay closed. The written word makes the giving one directional and the Giver unturning, and His Spirit is the one who closes an account nobody else opened.

One of the gifts, where you actually sit

So here is the assignment, and picking a gift rather than an ordinary book is the point.

Take one of the gifts off the pile tonight and put it somewhere you actually sit.

One of the four. The one with your name in it, or your sister's sentence, or the one from the person at work who barely knows you.

Not the whole four. Not a plan to get through them. Nobody here is going to suggest you get rid of any of them either, tonight or ever.

Then put it on the arm of the chair or the counter or wherever you actually end up.

You are holding four finished things, and a name written inside a cover has never once been an invoice. The Holy Spirit is the one at that stack with you, and James 1:17 has every good gift come all the way down with no return leg described anywhere.

Here is why a gift and not a neutral book.

The weight lives in the gifts, so moving a neutral book would leave the weight exactly where it is. Taking one of the four and putting it somewhere ordinary is what converts it from an obligation back into a book, and a book on a counter is a thing a person can pick up without any ceremony at all.

And if you open the front cover and read the sentence again, do that. It was written by somebody who was glad about you, and reading it is not an accounting exercise.

You are able to move one gift four feet, and a book with your name in it has never once been an object you owed anybody. James 1:17 says every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and the Holy Ghost is the one present with a man carrying a birthday book to a chair.

Read ten pages of it if you feel like it. Not required. The moving is the assignment and the moving is enough.

You have gifts that completed at the giving, and two years on a stack have never once reopened what was finished at a table. It is written and cometh down from the Father of lights, the direction is one way and the completion is at the coming down, and the Spirit of God is saying it over four covers tonight.