Now I know where I don't want to live. Today's New York Times carries a story about Paramus, New Jersey, a town with 27,000 residents and 2,700 stores. Two million square feet of shopping attract 20 million visitors a year and generate $5 billion in retail sales. If I lived there, I'd learn how to shop online. And I don't want to learn how to shop online.

God doesn't need a mall. As we saw yesterday, Jesus is his Christmas gift to us. He was born in Bethlehem to solve our greatest problem: our alienation from God, each other, and ourselves. The last sin you and I committed was enough to separate us from a holy God and his perfect purpose for our lives. How can we restore this broken relationship?

It is human nature to try to earn God's favor--if we can offer enough sacrifice (the ancient world's solution), do enough penance (the medieval answer), or live good enough lives (the modern response), surely God will take us back. But Scripture is clear: the person who sins will die (Ezekiel 18:4). Sin separates us from the God who gives us life, just as a board left on the lawn will block the sun's rays and cause the grass to die. The consequence or payment of sin is death (Romans 6:23). And so the only way my sin can be forgiven is for a sinless person to die in my place.

In one of Hitler's concentration camps, a new mother was chosen to die. The Nazi soldier coldly shoved her into the line for execution as she sobbed her fear for her baby. When the soldier turned away, a saintly woman known to the camp as Mother Maria walked up to the grieving mother, drew her aside, and took her place in the line. If I am to live eternally and be restored to my holy God in his perfect heaven, this is what must happen for me. And for you.

Now we understand the reason for the season, the purpose behind the Christmas Incarnation. Jesus was born to die. He was the Lamb slain before the beginning of the world (Revelation 13:8). He came to pay for our sins with his sinless death: "For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).

If you have asked Jesus to forgive your failures and mistakes and made him the King and Lord of your life, you have received what he came to give. You've opened your Christmas present from God. Right now would be a good time to stop and thank him for his transforming grace and eternal life. If you have not unwrapped his Christmas gift, why not? Why not ask his forgiveness and make him your Lord today?

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