Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2

What does Christmas mean to you? If your Christmas season is full of distractions, let’s refocus on Christ who is at the center of Christmas. Christmas is when we remember the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, into this world. It is a time to remember the birth of the Savior, the miracle that He came at all into this world of sinful, broken people to save us and give us eternal life when we deserve the opposite of that. But it is also a time to remember Jesus’ words in John 3:3 “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Why is this important? Because we are a self-willed people. And while the worst of us human beings are devils (John 6:70), even the best of us with the best intentions who try so, so hard to be good and noble and loving people…we are nothing without God. We need Him; every single person who has ever lived needs Jesus Christ. Every ethnicity, every religion, every background. Because we all have a broken self-will that gets us into trouble. It is the part of us that deviates from the will of God. It is the part of us that breaks connection with God and hurts other people. It is the part that generates corruption and sin because we won’t listen to the inner witness of God inside ourselves, the conscience. It is the old nature that must die and be given new life. We are a sin-sick people. All of us. And much like the hospital patient who is in need of a transplant to have new life, so do we need the life of God to live.

If you know you are sin-sick, good. The one who knows is in a better position than the one who does not know or wishes to remain in ignorance. For the one who thinks they are good and that God will accept that goodness…does your “goodness” guarantee acceptance by God? It is when we lower God’s standard that evils are committed. We can justify ourselves, but God never will justify sin because He does not judge you by your standard. He judges righteously with perfect righteousness and holiness. His standard is His Word and because you and I do not measure up to that Word, He sent His very Life, His Breath, His Word into the womb of a humble, obedient virgin woman named Mary. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Mary is a portrait of the new birth. Just as God sent His Word (JESUS) into her womb by the Holy Spirit, He does the same for every person who believes on Jesus and is born again by Him. 1 Peter 1:23 speaks of being “born again” by “the word of God which lives and abides forever.”That old sin-sick life you carry around…Jesus came to take it. He died so it too would die. He lives so you too may live. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12). Just as Jesus grew in Mary’s womb, so too does the Life of Christ grow in believers today. Being born again is about the old you dying with Christ on His cross and the new you being brought into being through the indwelling Holy Spirit of God. Christ in you, the hope of glory! (Col. 1:27)

The greatest Christmas gift you will ever receive is being born again by Jesus Christ through His Spirit. Every other gift will fade in time, but the gift of the Holy Spirit and your being recreated on the inside by Him is the gift that will live and abide forever.

Heavenly Father, grant that I might see past the ornaments and decorations of this season to the reality behind the festivities. Thank You for the beauty of this season, which reminds me that one day Your glory will fill the earth and every heart will know You because they will see You through Your Son. Yet, Father, help me remember why You sent Him and how much this world needs the Life of Your Son and Your Spirit. Change me where I need to be changed and continue to conform me to the image of Christ this Christmas and throughout the coming year. For Your glory, King of Heaven. In the Matchless Name of Jesus, Amen.