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The celebration is apparent everywhere.  Schools, businesses, churches, and homes display symbols of the Baby Jesus as well as Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and angels who visited the manger that night over 2000 years ago.  Dramas and cantatas tell the story of the birth of Jesus throughout most of the world this time of year.  Why is His birthday a national holiday?  Why is this Baby so important?  Why did Jesus come into this world?

The Bible says,

“…the angel Gabriel was sent from God…To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph…the virgin’s name was Mary.  And the angel said unto her… thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call His name JESUS…for He shall save His people from their sins.”

(Luke 1:26-31; Matthew 1:21)

But why did people need to be saved from their sins?  Why did Jesus have to be born without an earthly father?

When God created man he gave to him a perfect life.  This perfect life was to be a dwelling place in which God could live and express Himself in this world. It was not given to man as a gift to be used in whatever way man wanted to use it.  It was to be God’s exclusive property — to be used the way He wanted it used.   When Adam chose to eat of the tree in the Garden of Eden which represented a life independent of God, he was choosing to take that life and use it for his own selfish desires.  Legally speaking, he was stealing a life which did not belong to him.  From that day forward, he owed to God a debt— one perfect life.  We inherited that debt because none of Adam’s race had a perfect life they could offer up to God as payment for the debt.  Thus, the children of each generation inherited the debt from the previous generation — and passed it on to the next generation.  No one could pay it!

But thank God, He had a plan.  He planted His Son, Jesus, in the womb of a woman.  And, since God was his Father, no sin was passed to this Man.  Now, for the first time since Adam, there is a Man in the earth who does not have the sin principle at work in Him.  Yet, He was fully a man because His mother was a human.  So He was fully one of us.  And that makes Him the first man qualified to pay our debt.  His life is that perfect life that could pay the debt.  So, after living a perfect life, He went to a cross and offered up to God His perfect life as the payment for your “sin-debt” and mine.  He paid our debt so we could know God.  That is the reason we celebrate Christmas.  That perfect life had to get into this world if we were ever to get back to God.  We could never know God and become what God created us to be without that life —- and that death.

Did you know that?  Our forefathers who founded this nation knew that.  They gave birth to America for the purpose of protecting man’s right to share this message of Christ paying our debt. They believed all men must have the freedom to come to know God—and become a life God could live through in this world.  One of our Founding Fathers, John Quincy Adams, expressed their belief when he said,

“The Bible carries with it the history of the creation, the fall and redemption of man, and discloses to him, in the infant born in Bethlehem, the Legislator and Saviour of the world.”

(America’s God & Country, pg. 20)

They believed God sent a Saviour, a Deliverer to deliver us from the sin into which we had fallen: And to bring us into all He intended us to be in the beginning.

Do you believe in Him???  Have you received Him as you own Saviour and your “Immanuel”????  Did you know America was born for the purpose of protecting the right to teach this good news to your children— and the rest of the world?  Did you realize, in this way, the birth of America was “linked” to the birthday of the Saviour?

Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you–
and for your children!  And you won’t like what that brings to you.  I’m Don Pinson this has been Think About It.