Why Must a Savior Be Born?

MangerChrist the Savior is born, Christ the Savior is born!

Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!

During the Christmas season, we hear the word everywhere. Savior. It’s part of the season’s vernacular, and it hardly causes a blimp on our cultural consciousness.

But try using its counterparts – save and salvation. They often don’t sit quite so easy for many people. What is this thing called salvation all about, and why do we need to be saved anyway? This leads directly to the question that is integral with Christmas – why must a Savior be born?

First Exercise:

To answer this question, let me offer a simple exercise. If you have a pencil and paper handy, please draw a vertical line on the paper. (If you don’t have a pencil and paper, you can draw the line in your imagination.) Then label the very top of the line “perfectly holy, just like God,” and label the very bottom “scum of the earth.” Now place an “X” on the line at the location that best describes you.

Where did you put your “X”? In the context of our question (why must a Savior be born?), it matters little how high or low you placed it. For if we are unable to place our “X” at the very top (perfectly holy, just like God), then we fall short of God’s benchmark of perfect purity and holiness. The Bible calls this sin, it says that all are sinful, and it says that the wages of sin is death – eternal separation from God. As such, we stand in desperate need of a Savior!

Second Exercise:

Now let’s try one more simple exercise. Imagine if God asked you to state your qualifications for admittance into heaven using one sentence. What would your sentence look like? What would you list as your qualifications? Before reading any further, please try to compose your one-sentence qualifications.

Did yours focus on your best attempts at living a good life, your better-than-average lifestyle, or your religious credentials? If so, unless you declared yourself to be “perfectly holy, just like God,” you are depending on the wrong thing! Your best attempts, your good life, your moral lifestyle, and your religious credentials will all fall hopelessly short and are completely powerless to make you right with God!

Conclusion:

You, my friend, stand in desperate need of a Savior!

And this is where Jesus magnificently enters the picture!

The wonderful news of the Bible is that Jesus did for us what we could never do for ourselves. The God who crafted the universe and spoke the galaxies into being took on human flesh and blood and was born into this world. He paid the full penalty for our sins when He died on the cross. Jesus alone is holy and righteous enough to take the hit for us, and because of His passionate, complete love for us, He willingly did so.

We are the reason that Jesus was born into this world, and we are the reason that Jesus gave His life. He shed his blood on the cross for our sins so that we wouldn’t have to experience spiritual death and eternal separation from God. The Bible makes it clear that Jesus’ death alone has the power to save us. It says that only the cross and blood of Christ can make us clean before God.

That is why a Savior must be born.

Our salvation (being saved from both the enslaving power and the eternal consequences of our sin) is a free gift. And it is available for everyone to receive – including you.

This Christmas would be a perfect time to receive the Savior into your life, to accept His free gift of salvation, and to place Him on the throne of your heart. This Christmas would be a perfect time to begin a personal relationship with your Creator – a relationship of love and intimacy, starting right now and lasting throughout all eternity!

Why must a Savior be born? Because you and I need a Savior, and because God, in His perfect love for us, became our Savior.

So this Christmas, as you celebrate the birth of the Savior, don’t miss out on making the Savior your own.

This Christmas, receive the greatest gift of all – the Savior Himself.

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