For the Naughty and Nice

Everyone knows Christmas is for the good girls and boys. Santa only rewards the nice kids.

This is the story we have bribed our children with for generations. But it subtly turns God’s Christmas message upside down. In truth, Jesus came for the naughty, the shamed, the lost.

In her poem “Let the Stable Still Astonish,” Leslie Leyland Fields describes the rough setting of the nativity, and then puts it this way: “Who would have chosen this? Who would have said: ‘Yes, Let the God of all the heavens and earth be born here, in this place’? Who but the same God Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms of our hearts and says, ‘Yes, let the God of Heaven and Earth be born here——in this place.’”

She gave birth to her first-born son. She dressed him in baby clothes and laid him on a bed of hay, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Luke 2:7 (CEV)

Even the richest palace would seem a mean barnyard for One who came from heaven. But God went even further. Jesus was born among the animals. Unthinkable!

Yet his birth made the stable a place of royalty, and hope dawned there for our darkest places. Hope for the rebellious child. Hope for the sensitive one who can’t seem to get anything right. Hope for renewal of a marriage that’s been trampled with ugly words. Hope for softening hard hearts. Hope for those living in shame and regret.

Hope for peace in a world hell-bent on hate.

So let the imperfect—the lost, the weak, the rebellious—people know: Jesus brings hope to the ugliest places and the ugliest hearts. He can make all things beautiful.

PRAY

Thank you, Jesus, for coming for the naughty … since we are all in that category. Help me encourage my children when they also realize how much they need a Savior. Amen.

TIME TO TALK

Conversation starter for kids: Provides you with questions and prompts to facilitate a time of applicable discussion with children to lead them towards knowing God and His Word more deeply.

Questions: What do you think you deserve for Christmas? Do you know Jesus came for the naughty kids?

KEEP IT GOING

Related passages: These additional verses will help parents expand their Scriptural knowledge and place on the armor of God’s Word to tackle each day. Look up the following passages for today:

Ezekiel 34:11–12

Luke 19:10