My mother shopped for Christmas presents in January! The January sales offered reduced prices, saving hassle later in the year. ‘Flyers’ through our letterboxes urge us to buy now at bargain prices. Many spend foreign holidays bargain hunting, looking for things they don’t need at half the price they normally would never pay! (Take ‘designer belts’, for example, which last a few weeks and then disintegrate.) And consider ‘Buy one – get one free.’ Is the second item really ‘free’, or is it included in the price of the first item?
 

Anyone want a grey bull elephant?
We all like to buy something cheaper than it really is worth. Did you hear about the man supposedly offered a grey bull elephant for £3,000? He neither wanted nor needed it. He lived in a one room studio! Eventually, after negotiation, he agreed to buy two elephants for £5,000 to gain a £1,000 discount on the second elephant! Stupid joke? Yes – but it does illustrate our desire to hunt for bargains that we neither need nor can afford. 
Do you recognise a real bargain when you see one?
Stories of dubious reliability abound about free public offers of £5 notes without takers! It wouldn’t happen in my native Yorkshire! But can you miss a true bargain – something really valuable and desirable that is cheap or even free? ‘No’, you may say, ‘not me! I know a good deal when I see one.’ Do you? Let me test you. Have you ‘closed’ yet with planet Earth’s current most amazing worldwide free offer? (This really is fact, not fiction.)
God’s free offer of ultimate value
The Lord Himself makes the offer which is beyond valuation and lasts for ever. It includes love, joy, peace, help, comfort, self-control, forgiveness, and a completely changed life. But the Lord Jesus Christ not only makes us that dual offer of escape from eternal punishment and possession of eternal life now and forever. He Himself also is the offer.  The Bible says ‘God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’
Jesus, fully God and fully man, lived a perfect and righteous life. He went to the cross to die for us. There he bore and was punished for our sins. He both promises and is the gift of eternal life. You receive His gift by admitting your wrongs, turning from them and receiving Christ into your life by faith. Jesus then cleanses you from sin, changes your life from within, and promises Heaven to come. You cannot earn the Saviour’s gift of eternal life or deserve to know Him as Saviour and Friend. But although free to you, that gift cost Jesus everything, even His own blood. He rose from death, lives today, to offer you that gift. Will you receive Him – and His amazing gift – by asking Him to pardon you and come into your life as your Lord?
Gerard Chrispin