The purpose of this devotional is to help prepare you fro the celebration of the birth of Jesus. You may do this as your own quiet time, but we would encourage you to gather some family or loved ones to go through it together.

When I was in high school, my brother and I worked as a dishwasher at a restaurant in our little town. The owner was a very nice man. He knew that we were Christians and we would often talk to the other staff about our faith. One day my brother asked our boss “do you believe in Jesus?” My heart sank at his answer. He said, “I’ve done too many bad things in my life for Jesus to accept me.”

Sadly, I hear these same things from many different people—that if we fail Jesus won’t accept us. I wish all of these people would be able to read Romans chapter 4 and know how Jesus really feels about us. In verse 13 it says, “it was not through the law that Abraham and his children received the promise that he would be heir of the world,” In other words, it wasn’t because Abraham was a good person. The verse goes on to say, “but through the righteousness that comes by faith.” And it says in verse 16, “Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be a guaranteed… to those who are of the faith of Abraham.”

Often, we feel like the bad things we’ve done or mistakes we’ve made are like a pile of garbage sitting between us and Jesus, and we have to somehow clean everything up before Jesus will accept us. These verses, however, say all we need is faith to believe in Jesus. If we have faith in Jesus, then he gives us his righteousness. Jesus doesn’t let the garbage stand between us. Jesus stands beside us with his arm around us and he helps us deal with the garbage in our life. He is our friend who wants to help us in hard times. That friendship is what we celebrate this Christmas. -Luke Spaulding, Leo Campus and Outreach Pastor