Are you a good gift receiver? I am not. I seem to romanticize gift-giving occasions and make them a lot grander in my head than they should be. It could be all those romantic comedies I watched on the Hallmark channel, maybe Instagram, or even just simply my own struggle with consumerism, but I seem to never be pleased with what I have. It’s easy for me to break that Ninth Commandment and covet what others have and feel jealous that I don’t have it too. This can really ruin the happiest times of the year because there’s no peace when struggling with sin.

Here’s the thing about sin: it can seem really small, even insignificant, so we start to ignore it. We might even think, “It’s not that big of deal; everyone feels that way sometimes; it’s fine, I’m only human.” But sin is like a virus. One little speck attaches to your cells, feeds off of you, and binds to you to grow and reproduce. Sin is so pervasive that we don’t just confess to sin but confess that we ARE sinners. We are infected with sin, and there is only one cure for getting rid of it: Jesus.

Jesus is the only man in history to be tempted in every way—just as we are—yet not sin. He wasn’t born into sin the way the rest of us were. He was fully man but was also immune to our sinful disease. We know what it’s like to mask up, stay six feet apart, and wash our hands an insane amount to prevent ourselves from catching a temporary sickness. Can you imagine willingly putting yourself at risk of an eternal sickness just to save people who don’t deserve it? Jesus was the one healthy man who made himself sick so that the masses could be healthy.

And just to be clear…Jesus didn’t infect himself with his own sin. He infected himself with your sin, and your neighbors’, and all peoples’ of all time. He removed it from us, put it on himself, and let it kill him. The only way to stop this disease from destroying us was to let it destroy him—and then for him to destroy it once and for all. He separated us from our sin so that we could finally have peace and healing.

When you are struggling with your sin, recognize it! Name it and call it what it is so that you can confess it and be reminded your peace doesn’t rely on you. Instead, your peace solely depends on Jesus’ death on the cross. Because of his suffering and death, we have peace in this life and in the next. He paid for our sins so that we could be reunited with God and be at peace again. Apart from God there is no peace, no Messiah, no forgiveness or healing. These things are the antidote that can only come from God and are only given to us because of what Christ did on the cross.