Your best Christmas present

Pastor Mark Jeske

Sin alienates people from God and from one another. When it dawned on Adam and Eve how badly their fruit-tasting experiment had gone, they tried to escape the gaze of the Father who had been so kind to them. So great was their guilt that they hid naked in some bushes, trembling and aghast at what they had done.

Whenever holiness and heaven broke into people’s day-to-day existence in Bible times, they had the same experience—fear, even terror, that the hammer was finally going to drop. Zechariah and Mary both had to be calmed down before the angelic Christmas message could be delivered to each.

And so did some shepherds working third shift in the fields outside little Bethlehem: “And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks by night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid’” (Luke 2:8-10).

Here is your best Christmas present, this year and every year—that the Christ Child came to earth to take away your fear. Because that little Child will bear your condemnation and the consequences of your sin, there is no judgment or punishment left for you. You can live every day of your life absolutely certain that you are loved, forgiven, and immortal.

No fear. Merry Christmas!

Devotion used by permission of Time of Grace®. For more information, visit timeofgrace.org