December 21

Did you know that the Christmas story actually started before the world was ever created….?

It’s true! Christmas was NOT Plan B! It was and has always been Plan A!

Bible tells us that God loved us before the foundations of the world, before He even created us…. He wanted to be with us but He knew that we would sin; and since He is holy and heaven is perfect, we wouldn’t be able to be with Him in heaven if He didn’t do something about our sin.

So God decided before He ever created us that He loved us so much that He would send His only Son, Jesus, down here to earth to die for us so that our sins could be washed away.

BEFORE HE CREATED THE WORLD, HE’D ALREADY THOUGHT OF CHRISTMAS.

1 Peter 1:19-20 “but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen BEFORE THE CREATION OF THE WORLD, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.”

2 Timothy 1:9 “He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF TIME,”

The true story of Christmas in a nutshell?

God thought of us and loved us, made a plan, created the world (including us), made a covenant with us knowing we would break it, sent His Son to save us and fulfill the covenant for us, thereby allowing us to reconnect with God forever.

Ok, in not so much of a nutshell:

God thought of us and loved us before He even made us, so He made a plan to rescue us because He knew we would mess up. (see verses above)

Then He created the world. See Genesis 1 & 2

After God created the world, He gave us commandments to teach us the right way He created us to live. He taught us that sin was not good and that it would keep us from being able to enjoy God.

Then God began to send the message through prophets about Jesus coming to save humans. One of these messages about Christmas, the birth of Jesus, is found in Isaiah 9.

Isaiah 9:6 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

God started sending this message a long time before Jesus came and the people waited and waited. They would get excited about a savior coming and they would also get tired of waiting, just like we probably get excited about Christmas coming and we probably get tired of waiting for it to get here (especially the kids.)

Then Jesus arrived, in a manner not expected for the King of the Universe, but completely consistent with the prophecies. He was born in a stable, in a small, despised town to a poor, uneducated teenager and then lived a humble life with the ultimate goal of sacrificing His life for us, to pay the price for our sin and allow us the opportunity to spend eternity with our Heavenly Father.

So you see, Christmas was always Plan A, not Plan B…the True Story of Christmas actually began before God ever created the world!