My Donald Trump Food Box

by Tad Lindley

A good gift meets some criteria. The gift is sacrificial. It costs the giver significant time or money. It is personal to the recipient. A great gift has involved much planning. And it is very hard to obtain.

President Trump gave me a gift!

I don’t know if they had them where you live, but as part of the Corona virus relief package, they gave out food boxes in Bethel. It wasn’t welfare, because everyone was eligible regardless of income. The box even had a real prize in it, shredded mozzarella cheese, most of the other contents I have forgotten. And included in this great gift box was a letter from the president of the United States, Donald Trump. Here I am, how many thousand miles away and yet by executive fiat, the present sent me (and hundreds of others in Bethel) this gift.

Pres. Trump: How can I help Bro. Lindley?

As great as it is to receive a gift like that from our former president, it will never be perceived by me or anyone else as the greatest gift they ever received. It’s not like President Trump was pacing back and forth in the White House saying to himself, “I’m really worried about Tad Lindley up there in Bethel. He’s probably getting crushed by coronavirus and can’t even afford food! I know what I’ll do, I’ll send him a box of his favorite foods including shredded mozzarella cheese!”

Who actually did the leg work?

To be special, the giver must be fully invested in the gift. The fact of the matter is, that no president of the United States has ever known my name. I imagine that our president actually said something like this, “You over there, I want a million food boxes out there, and I want them out now. And I want a letter in there signed by me. Write whatever you want, just get it out to the people!” And so some anonymous government official with mediocre writing skills penned a letter on White House stationary and the pdf got printed off in a thousand food distribution centers and dropped in a million boxes around the country. And as much as it hurts me to say it, President Trump had no idea that there was shredded mozzarella cheese in my box.

God’s gift is real

Romans 6:23 tells us, The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Salvation came to us through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. The Lord himself is the one who did the legwork. It was his face that they punched and spit upon. It was his body that brutally tortured on the cross at Calvary. It was his life that was cut short in utter humiliation and defeat. It was his own blood that was shed for the remission of our sin (see Matthew 26:28 and Acts 20:28).

Not someone else

Let me say that again, it was his own blood that was shed, not somebody else’s. The Lord did not say to one of the angels, “Hey Michael, I’ve got a plan. You go down and take on the form of man and preach for a few years and then let them crucify you until you bleed out and die of total exhaustion on the cross.” No, He did not send an anonymous angel, he did not send Jehovah Jr. It was the Lord himself who became flesh and dwelt among us. The Bible boldly proclaims this in multiple places.

•John 1:10 He [Jesus] was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

•Colossians 2:9 For in him [Jesus] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

•I Timothy 3:16 …great is the mystery of godliness: God [not someone else] was manifest in the flesh…

So when we contemplate the cross, we must realize that this was truly a gift from God. He planned it for eons, after all is he not the Lamb slain from the foundations of the world? (Revelation 13:8) He was obtaining something so scarce that we could never hope to get it for ourselves. And as the Bible so clearly shows, it was he himself, and not another that made the ultimate sacrifice for our sin. Thank you Jesus!

Rev. Tad Lindley is a minister at the United Pentecostal Church in Bethel, Alaska.

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