If you ask a person how their life is, most might say things are good. However, if they were probed further, and asked to consider not just their personal circumstances and lives but all that is going on in the world as a whole, their outlook might change. When we consider the cost-of-living crisis most are dealing with, heinous crimes committed any given moment, illnesses that rob people of a normal life, wars that ravage nations, all this suffering going on at this very moment, it can rob us of hope and joy, and despair about the future.
In the Bible, we learn that God created a perfect world, but when Adam and Eve sinned against God by not trusting Him, sin entered the world. It is this sin nature in us that is the cause of all the suffering in the world. We are liars, selfish, unloving, unkind and ungodly people because we are sinners. But we read in the Bible that God didn’t abandon us, but at the right time, He sent His Son Jesus to die for our sins so that the requirement of God’s law, that blood must be shed to pay for sins, was met. Because Jesus came, because He was sinless, and because He loved us enough to die for our sins, you and I can be cleansed, forgiven and adopted as children of God. When we have Jesus, no matter what is going on in our lives or in the world, He blesses us with His hope, joy and peace that nothing can take away!
This Christmas, I pray that the Spirit of God will help you receive Jesus, the Greatest Gift, the One who came to die for your sins so that you can become a child of God, and live a life filled with hope, joy and peace, no matter what is going on in your life or in the world.
