Transformed – teen devotion – December 1, 2024

In order to have a real Christmas, we have to understand why Jesus came and why he is coming back.

Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

1 Thessalonians 3:11-13

A Real Christmas Requires Remembering Why Christ Came

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (TV Version) is the greatest Christmas movie of all time.

If you haven’t seen it, Clark Griswold is your everyday middle-class American who wants nothing more than to give his family the perfect, old fashioned, Griswold family Christmas. He wanted his family to have a real Christmas. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Hilarity ensued. Watch the movie when it comes on TV in a few weeks.

What is a real Christmas anyways?

We are starting the season in the church year called Advent this week. Advent helps us prepare are hearts for Christmas when we celebrate Christ’s first coming, but Advent is really about looking ahead to Christ’s second coming.

In order to have a real Christmas, we have to understand why Christ came the first time and why he is coming again.

Jesus didn’t come at Christmas so that we can take a break from school every year. He didn’t come to teach us a lesson about gift giving. He didn’t come to show us how to live our lives.
He came at Christmas to live for us. He came to die for us.

Jesus lived a perfect life, and he’s given us all the credit. He allowed Roman soldiers to shed his blood on the cross, because that blood was considered sufficient payment to God for your sins and the sins of the whole world.

In other words, Jesus came at Christmas so that you might be holy and blameless.

Those words are really important. The fact that Jesus has made you holy means that he has set you apart and taken away your sin. The fact that you are blameless means that the devil can’t accuse you of any wrongdoing. Jesus has taken it all away. You are an heir of heaven.

Paul wanted the Christians he was writing to to remember that. He wants you to remember that too.

As you prepare your heart for Christmas, remember that Jesus came to make you holy and blameless. Remember that he is coming back one day to take you to be with him in heaven forever.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, thank you for making me holy and blameless in your sight. Help me to reflect your love to everyone I come into contact within this world. Amen.