Christmas Candle Scripture 25 – Chosen

Luke 2:11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

Today is the day we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is a day of celebration, relaxation and fun. We give presents, spend time with family, eat good food and have fun. But do we really spend the time we need to on the Lord? Do we really take time to think of what He did for us and why He came to earth?

Jesus Christ came to earth in order to live a life that would allow us to return and live with the Father again. He came here to be perfect, suffer for our sins and then die, sinless and blameless, in a very painful way so that our sins could be wiped away and we can be made perfect through Him. This is the only way by which we can return to our Father in Heaven’s presence. No unclean thing can enter His presence, so when we came to earth, we were removed from ever being able to return to Him again, no matter how good we were, because we do not have the capacity to be 100% perfect.

But someone did.

Jesus Christ, our elder brother, offered Himself up as a pure and perfect sacrifice to pay for our sins so that we could be made clean and be able to enter our Father’s presence again. And for that to happen, He would need to have a mortal body that could suffer and die.

This is why Christmas is so special. It may not be the exact date of Christ’s birth, but that does not negate the importance of celebrating it. Christ was born to do an amazing task and He pulled it off flawlessly. He was born to make it possible for us to be cleansed from our sins and return to our Father’s presence. He was born to give us a chance. He was born to give us hope.

No matter what we’ve done in our lives or how far we have fallen, Jesus Christ was born to make us clean, if we but follow Him. We must take part in the Atonement and work each day to be our best and to stay away from sin. When we do sin or fall short, we can take part of the Atonement again and keep moving forward. This is what Jesus Christ came here for. This is what we are celebrating on Christmas Day.

We are celebrating Hope.

I love the fact that Jesus Christ has given me hope. There are times in my life when I felt like there was no hope and that things would never get better, whether it be from choices of my own or choices of others. But then I remembered that Jesus Christ came here to allow me to have hope and to be absolved of my sins. And so can you. He didn’t say that His sacrifice was only for those who had only sinned a little or those who had tried their whole lives to be good. Hie sacrifice is for all of those who embrace Him and have a sincere desire to do what is right. No matter what is in our past, no matter how far we have fallen, if we just turn to Him and give our sins over to Him, He will make it right. We just have to work every day to be better than we were the day before.

And while the Atonement is to remove our sins from us, it is also to remove other things. The hurt we feel at things people have done to us, the pain we feel at physical infirmities, the anguish of lost hope and shattered dreams, the despair of loss and the rage of injustice. Any feeling we have, no matter the cause, that does not bring us peace and happiness, Jesus Christ came into the world and died to take that from us.

So, on this Christmas Day, take some time out of your revelry and eating and present opening to think of the real reason we are celebrating this day: The hope and assurance that we can return to our Father because of the sacrifice of His son. The birth of Jesus Christ was a great and glorious day because it was the day wherein all things became possible for us. So remember that. Remember the love He had when He chose to come down here and suffer for all the sins of mankind. Remember the compassion He had when He willingly offered Himself for us. And remember the joy we must have felt in heaven when we knew that we would be able to return home again. Remember that and give some time to celebrate it be focusing on Him and the glory of His birth.

I love the Lord and I am thankful every day for His decision to come down here and die for me. But it’s not just that He died for me. He lived for me. He was born for me. And He loves me.