We are into the final week before Christmas. By now most of the Christmas shopping is done, much of the cookie baking is complete and we have driven around and seen all of the cool Christmas lights in the area. Family is starting to arrive from distant homes to share the joy of Christmas with us and we are making final plans for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

At our house Christmas Eve is always celebrated with an evening church service. Sometimes it is a candlelight Lords Supper, sometimes a focus on the children, and sometimes a regular worship service with an emphasis on the music of Christmas. Regardless of the type of service the true focus is on the greatest gift ever given to mankind. It has been said that there have been thousands of babies born who became kings, but only one King who became a baby. In order for any man to pass into eternity and spend it in the presence of God Almighty, there must be a price paid for our sinful nature.

God created heaven on earth in the place called the Garden of Eden. He placed man and woman in that garden with only one restriction, do not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Man yielded to temptation, ate the fruit and was evicted from paradise on earth. The one responsible for leading man into temptation was punished by being required to crawl on his belly forever in this world. The sentence for man was hard labor to bring about food for himself. The punishment for woman was painful labor in childbirth. Still in the third chapter of Genesis, God says that the final victory will belong to Him alone. While sin may have struck at the heel of creation, God will crush the head of sin in the end.

God provided a path to salvation and eternal life through the birth, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God stepped out of heaven and entered this earth as a babe in a manger to life a sinless life, go to the cross to pay the price of the sin of every man, and rise from the dead to return to heaven and sit at the right hand of God for eternity. For those who acknowledge that Christ is the Son of God, believe that He has the authority to forgive sin, will trust Christ with his life and ask forgiveness from the Savior, to that person forgiveness is given and eternal life is obtained. There is no other way. Christ Himself tells us in John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me!” There are not a thousand ways to heaven. There is only one and He was born on Christmas day. Actually, one Holy Night.

The joy that fills my soul when I realize what Christ has done for me, how God has blessed me in every way every day of my life can only bring about a joyful Hallelujah!