Thankful: Day 6 [Jesus Better than Santa]

I went out and got Henry the "Christmas Classics" DVD with the old school movies such as Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, etc.  I mainly did it because Henry is starting to get really excited about snowmen (poor guy was born in the wrong city), and he made me sing "Frosty the Snowman" like 100 times in a row the other day.

So, naturally, the first classic we watched was Frosty.  You probably don't remember, but Frosty has a magic hat, and long story short, there's an evil magician who tries to melt Frosty because he wants that magic hat.  But SANTA intervenes.  He saves Frosty from the magician by telling the magician that if he hurts Frosty, then Santa will never bring him any presents again.  AND, if he wanted to get any gifts on Christmas morning (which was the next day in the story), then he better go home and write, "I'm sorry for what I did to Frosty" 100 times.

In other words, if you are naughty, pay back your debt by feeling and proving that you are sorry, and then Santa will reward you with Christmas gifts.

How thankful I am that God doesn't work that way!

Ya see, I was on the naughty list with no way of getting to the nice list.  Jesus was on the nice list, but he chose to erase my name from the naughty list and put his name where mine was.  Then he wrote my name on the nice list where his was. Now I get all the benefits of being on the nice list.  Talk about a great Christmas gift!

We have a debt to God we could never pay back, so He sent his Son to pay it for us!  Even if we tried to pay our debt by feeling sorry enough for hurting Him, we would always fall short - our best efforts are always, always, always completely lacking, completely incomplete. Only God could completely pay our debt. He did, and now we get the benefits of being children of God!

Thank goodness that the way we get good with God is NOT by any of our own doing, but by trusting that Jesus became sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

So today I'm thankful that Jesus is way better than Santa Clause.  And, no, I'm not a Santa hater.