READ: JOHN 3:16; 15:13; ROMANS 5:6-11; 10:9-10

Have you ever known somebody who was really sick and needed a new kidney? We are born with two kidneys, like how we’re born with two lungs, but if we don’t have at least one healthy kidney, our bodies can’t clean up all the toxins that collect in our blood. Thankfully, some people who have kidney disease can go into a doctor’s office regularly for dialysis, having a machine clean their blood, but dialysis may only help for a while.

My husband had to live with kidney failure for years, and it was really hard. He was so sick that he had to just take little sips of water and be careful with every bit of food. Until one day he was given the best gift ever. He received a kidney from a friend. She said, “You don’t have any kidneys, and I have two. So, I want to share.”

Can you believe it? That kind of love is pretty incredible. My husband didn’t deserve her kidney. He hadn’t done anything special to merit this new life she offered. She was born with her kidneys, and by rights, they were hers. Hers to share.

The grace she extended to my husband is a lot like the grace God lovingly extends to us. We don’t deserve to be in God’s family. There is nothing special we did, or could ever do, to merit this new life He offers.

In order for my husband to get out of life with dialysis, he had to receive her gift. In a similar way, we are invited to receive the gift of Jesus. While we were helpless to cleanse ourselves of sin, He loved us. He sacrificed His life for us on the cross and paid for our cleansing. Then He rose from the grave, declaring that all who put their trust in Him are forgiven and freed from sin. Because of what Jesus has done for us, we can receive that gift.

The gift of life eternal, the gift of a life that doesn’t depend on any artificial means we might invent to try to clean ourselves up, and the gift of fulness of life with Him (John 10:10-11). • Kristen Merrill

• How is Jesus’s sacrifice similar to someone giving up one of their kidneys? How is it different? (For more about Jesus’s death and resurrection, and what it means for us today, see our "Know Jesus" page.)

• Sometimes, it’s hard to receive a gift as big as the one Jesus gives us. Why do you think that might be? Consider taking some time to talk to God about this.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV)