A Promise of Healing

What IS the purpose of Christmas? Is it the beautiful evergreens that light up our family rooms or the snowmen decorations that sit on our mantels? Maybe the purpose of Christmas is to see just how many lights we can hang from our rooftops and blowup Santa's we can adorn our yards with before we blow a breaker? Could it be that the true purpose of Christmas goes much, much deeper than the beautifully wrapped presents that sit underneath our trees and the stockings that hang by the chimney? Yes, indeed...I do believe it could be...in fact, it IS.

For us to grasp the purpose of what Christmas truly is, let's take a trip back to the very beginning of time as we know it. On the sixth day of creation God made mankind. Man was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26). He was the crowning point of God's creation; a living human, created in God's image to rule over all creation.

It is necessary for us to note here what the word image means. Image is the transliteration of the Hebrew word tselem which means to shade or to shadow. You and I were created to live in the shadow of God; we were created to shadow Him. Think about it this way. You've started a new job and you are being trained by someone who knows the job well. They are telling you everything you need to know about how to do that particular job. You are shadowing them, working right beside them, mimicking all they do.

God created us in His image, not to look like Him physically, but He created us with the capabilities to feel emotions, to have our own will and to be intellectual; and also to be morally good and sinless like He was. In the beginning man was able to shadow God perfectly and experience intimate fellowship with Him. Adam and Eve were able to walk hand-in-hand with God. They experienced the joys of fellowshipping with Him anytime they desired to do so because they were sinless, perfect, without blame. They had done and were doing all God had commanded them to do.

But, something happened.

Sin happened and literally broke apart man's relationship with God. Because man was created with his own will and intellect, having the ability to make choices, he chose to disobey God resulting in him being cast out from God's shadow. Man became sick with the disease of sin. There was now a dividing line between God and man; a line in which man was not allowed to cross. (see Genesis 3:1-24 to read the account of the fall of man from the shadow of God)

If God created us to have intimate fellowship with Him and to live in His shadow, what was man to do now that He was no longer allowed to freely enter into that shadow? How would man get back into right relationship with His God? How would man be healed from the disease of sin?

In the midst of God's heart being broken over man's sin and in the midst of having to punish man as a result of this sin, God promised man that there would come a Seed from woman who would crush the head of Satan, the father of all sin, and restore their fellowship with one another (Genesis 3:15). This Seed was the promise of a Savior, Jesus Christ, who would heal mankind of the disease of sin.

"And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross,

so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness;

for by His wounds we are healed."

1 Peter 2:24

So, what IS the purpose of Christmas? Christmas IS God fulfilling a promise He made long ago that a Seed would come from woman to heal man of his sin disease and erase the line of separation between God and man. Christmas IS the promise of healing for all those who believe.

Precious sister, do you need to be healed today from the disease of sin and be brought back into fellowship with God? God sent an Savior for you who will erase the dividing line between you and God and allow for you to live in His shadow. "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16) Call out to Him right now for that healing.