As long as I could remember growing up, I always felt as though I wasn’t worthy or enough to be considered a Christian, and most notably for God or anything related to Him to even be near me, because all I could understand in my early youth was that God was good, and I was bad. This false narrative only grew more real as I matured in my faith, no matter how good a person I thought myself to be, or the endless amounts of good deeds I did for others, God’s Word always reminded me otherwise(Ephesians 2:8-9 NLT). And maybe it has reminded you as well?
The Old Testament is riddled with countless stories of mankind not being able to physically come close to God or dwell near His presence due to our sinful nature and His righteousness not being able to mix, just like water and oil cannot mix. We first see this during the fall of mankind with Adam and Eve after their wrong choices(Genesis 3:20-24 NLT). We also see this during Moses’s time period in (Exodus 3:5), and another instance when a man named Uzzah died coming close to God’s presence by mistake (2 Samuel 6: 6-7 NLT). All of these instances not only prove that before Jesus, mankind only knew of God and His character, but that all of these instances are preludes for the coming of Christ who was prophesied about over 300 times in the Old Testament. And through the birth of Jesus, His life, death and resurrection, God’s sole goal to finally be one with mankind came to fruition (2 Corinthians 6:16 NLT). From the moment Adam and Eve sinned, God had provision for all who sinned and fell short of His glory (Romans 3:23).
Recently, my pastor requested that I speak to my church about the birth of Jesus and what that meant to me. Honestly, I had been so caught up in life and my own shortcomings that it made me realize that I didn’t truly know or understand what Jesus’s birth meant to someone like me. Someone who did not feel like they belonged, who believed they had done too many sinful and wrong things to be qualified to be uttered in the same sentence as Him or as one of His children. I was someone who didn’t get saved because of the love I had for God, no, but because He told me that if I didn’t choose Him due to the wrong way I was living, I was headed toward hell. I’m someone who has struggled with unforgiveness, pride, sexual immorality, lust, and addiction. So in my head, I always believed God couldn’t dwell in or near someone like me, as what I believed too unclean or messed up for God to be bothered with. But God.
Jesus’s birth proved otherwise. It showed that not only did God come in the physical form of man through Christ’s birth, but we sinners were able to finally touch and most importantly, dwell near Him (Luke 2:6-7). We see this through countless interactions of Jesus in the New Testament, of His interaction with those that the majority deemed less than, such as the lady at the well (John 4:1-42), (Matthew 9:10-13), and many other interactions with those who were deemed “unrighteous.”
What this one small request from my pastor made me realize was that God was with me in the lowest and most sinful periods of my life, whether I realized it or not. My hope for this piece is that it makes all of us truly think about what the birth of Jesus truly means to us individually and what that means for our lives and walks with God. I hope we all truly talk with Him about this side of existence we are all experiencing, which we call life. I see so many people paralyzed or not even trying to go to Jesus due to them believing they have done too much, or are too far gone. I see and speak to these people all the time, and I have been these people more than I care to count during my most challenging of times. What I say to all of us is that “Go to Jesus, He’s the Only Way.” How can we try and build a relationship with a God who wants a relationship with us if we aren’t even willing to say hello or answer when He calls?
