Here’s this week’s installment of Five Minute Friday. You might remember the task is to write for five minutes on a specific prompt word. The initiative was started by Lisa-Jo Baker (http://lisajobaker.com/2013/07/five-minute-friday-present/) who thought about writing and how often our perfectionism gets in the way of our words. And she figured, why not take five minutes and see what comes out: not a perfect post, not a profound post, just five minutes of focused writing.

This week’s prompt is PRESENT

Here goes. The timer is set for five minutes {clock starts now}

There is a joke about a Sunday school teacher teaching her class about how to get into heaven. I’ll leave that for another time, and jump to the point of the story. You don’t get into heaven. It’s a present … a gift freely given to us.

That’s the beauty of the present. We didn’t do anything to deserve it. In fact, we did everything  not to deserve it. We can’t do anything to earn it. We shouldn’t expect it.

Yet, our God is a loving God. He shared His Son, Jesus Christ, and gave us the biggest, best present we could ever hope for … the promise of everlasting life in His presence.

Our responsibility is to accept it. We do have to accept the present and use it … STOP

… by sharing it with those around us. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.

THOUGHT TO REMEMBER: Sour grapes are gripe food.