IBCV (International Bap. Church of Vienna) was, yet again, wonderful this morning!! :) Samuel Bamford (the man that spoke at the first service we attended... the atomic physicist from Africa) spoke. His message was centered around the first Sunday of Advent. He told a true story to start out: There was a family that was having a baby shower for their new child. It was winter, so everyone was hanging their coats up in the house... but soon, after a ton of people came over, there were no more coat hooks. People took their coats into the back room, and then continued to the party. Everyone had gifts and just had a great time socializing with each other. After a while, some people said, "we haven't even seen the baby yet!" The mom went back to the baby's crib, but the baby wasn't there. She asked the father where their new child was, but he had no idea! They couldn't find the baby! -- After a while, they looked in the room with the coats. The people who came to the party hadn't paid attention, and had laid their coats on the bed..... where the little baby had been put to take a nap! Luckily, the little kid was okay... just covered in coats. The people had been so concerned about the party, that they had forgotten about the child. This is a similar situation to how we are today around Christmas. We get so caught up in Christmas and its activities, that we cover up the baby! Samuel then said, "A gift is never a gift until it has been recieved!" -- If we never truly accept Jesus, then we can't benefit from recieving the gift in the first place. Bro. Samuel also talked about how precious of a gift that Jesus was. He said that when someone gets a gift, only the giver really knows how much it cost. Giving Jesus to us cost Jesus EVERYTHING. The gift is free (to us), but not to God. -- A lot of the times, when we don't think about the real value of a gift, and just think of it as free, we tend not to value it nearly as much. We should take care of this precious gift of salvation, and really be thankful for it. We have recieved a priceless gift.... so take care of it!