We are getting close to Christmas. I am planning to drive to Texas to see my family. I haven’t been home for Christmas in about 20 years. My mom really pushed for me to come home for Thanksgiving but I couldn’t manage it. This is better anyway because my kids have more time during the Christmas break and we won’t be so rushed.

Besides getting to see my family I am not that excited about Christmas. When I was a kid it was my favorite holiday. Now, not so much. Even when people say the reason for the season is Jesus. I’m not even sure how I feel about such statements.

I am grateful for the birth of Jesus but, even more so, I am glad for His death and resurrection. Without it, there would be no salvation for us. No hope for man. I know that we live in a dangerous world and some people don’t believe that Jesus’ dying has done any good. I guess that’s where faith comes in because the scriptures say, “In other words, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s trespasses against them, and he has given us the message of reconciliation.”(2Corinthians 5:19)

It doesn’t seem like the world is any better off but that’s just because the majority of the people in the world have not yet realized what the Lord has done for them. We were disconnected, cut off from God. That is called the sin condition. Sin means to be without a part of – separate. To be separated is a form of death. When the spirit separates from the body there is a death. When we suffer separation from the people we love there is a form of death. And there are many other ways we suffer death in this life. We all died in and with Adam and Eve when they separated themselves from God in disobedience. Since He is the life of men that separation left Adam and Eve and us, dead, separated from God.

What Jesus did was to reconcile all men to Himself, through His death, to God. And in His resurrection, we were all reconnected and filled with the life of God once again. Just as in Adam we were separated from God’s life, in Jesus we are re-connected. Just as we inherited the sin (death) condition from Adam we have now inherited the life and righteousness of Jesus. This was His purpose in coming here. When he rose from the dead we were all resurrected as well.

This is a proclamation. It is not a scenario where you have to get your life together so that God will accept you. In Jesus Christ, He has already accepted you. All you have to do is realize it and live your life accordingly. This is a simplification but God has laid the ground work in Jesus Christ which enables all who will live a life worth living. This includes you, whoever you are, no matter what you have done in the past. Your sins are forgiven, taken away by the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. (John 1:29)

I hope you all enjoy the holiday. Jesus is the reason for anything good.

Merry Christmas