He existed in the beginning with God. (John 1:2 NLT)

Who has affected history more than Jesus Christ? More books have been written and more music has been composed about Jesus than about anyone who has ever lived.

His birth and His death divide human history. The great thing for us as Christians is that we have Christ living inside us. And from the day that we give our lives to Him, our goal should be to get to know Jesus better and become more like Him.

The apostle Paul wrote, “I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!” (Philippians 3:10–11 NLT).

Paul was saying, “This is my heartbeat. This is my passion. I want to know Jesus.” That should be the passion of every follower of Christ.

In Jesus, God spelled Himself out in a language that we can understand. God became a Man. Referring to Jesus, the Bible says, “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him” (John 1:1–3 NLT).

We could translate the phrase “the Word was with God” as “He was continually toward God.” In other words, God the Father and God the Son were continually face to face. In John 17 Jesus prayed, “Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began” (verse 5 NLT). It’s hard for us to grasp how close the Father and the Son were.

John 1 also tells us that Jesus is the Creator. He was involved in the creative process of all that we see.

Sometimes people mistakenly think there is a God of the Old Testament and a God of the New Testament. They perceive the God of the Old Testament as wrathful and perpetually in a bad mood. Meanwhile, they view the God of the New Testament as loving and full of grace and ready to forgive.

Both of those views are incorrect. There is one God from Genesis to Revelation. He is just, He is righteous, He is holy, He is loving, He is merciful, and He is forgiving.

Jesus was God with skin on. He walked in our shoes, breathed our air, lived our lives, and died our death. God came near.

The real message of Christmas is that God came to Earth. It is Immanuel, God is with us. We are not alone. When we get a hold of that, all the other things don’t matter as much. We can still celebrate and enjoy Christmas, of course. We can put up Christmas lights and enjoy giving presents.

But if we focus on the real meaning of Christmas, it becomes so much more significant. That’s because no one is closer to God than those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ.

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