“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort who comforts us in all our afflictions, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

Yes, you know it’s true. Those gifts that really didn’t quite land so well? The ones where you unwrap them, open them up, and feigned surprise and delight while inside you were wondering, “What were they thinking?”

And so the dilemma is now upon you. What do you do next? Well, when returning isn’t an option, a lot of people turn to re-gifting. One report showed that 43 percent of people reported re-gifting a present that they had received. Well, it may surprise you to know that I found evidence of re-gifting in the Scripture. In fact, listen to 2 Corinthians 1:3-4:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort who comforts us in all our afflictions, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

God gives the gift of comfort to you so that you will re-gift it to others. In fact, God says the same about a lot of gifts. A lot of the gifts that He gives to us, He wants us to re-gift. Consider the gift of love, mercy, service. All these are gifts He gives to us in the hopes that we will re-gift them to others. There is one notable exception to this description of God’s gifts.

God’s gifts are meant to be received by us for our own benefit first. As we receive them and are transformed by them, we are then called by the Lord to re-gift them to others. So receive, re-gift, and repeat.

Prayer
Lord Jesus, we thank You for all of the good gifts that come from You; the gifts that You give to us and bless us with.

They are ones that we receive as a benefit to our own lives. And yet, we are mindful today of Your encouragement that the comfort and the gifts that You give to us are not meant to be kept to ourselves, but instead we are blessed to be a blessing to others. We have been gifted that we might gift to others and so help us to do just that.

In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.