The saddest story of Christmas is how those closest to Christ's birth completely missed that first Christmas; and that tragedy has continued to this day. You can be so close and yet so far away!
The real purpose of Christmas was shown by God at Christ's birth, God confronted the world with the only gift everyone really needs.
Christmas is about the gift no one seeks but everyone needs.
God so loved the world that He sent Jesus to save lost people from their sins.
God came to provide the only gift that everyone absolutely, critically needs—the substitutionary death of His Son, who came to meet our critical, eternal-life-threatening need prompted by our sins.
So the gift of Christmas is Christ's work of salvation. That gift involves meeting the critical needs each of us have in our lost, sinful and fallen condition.
Dr. John Barnett
Tulsa Bible Church
www.tulsabible.org
