It started with Adam and Eve, the first two beings ever created, and the first to sin. The moment they took bites of the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, their eyes were opened to sin; a gap was formed between God, in his perfection and justice, and man, in his sin and darkness. The only thing that could save them now was a Savior.
God made a secure promise to the serpent, the one who had tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit, that he would be destroyed in the end. After that moment, the human race began to hope for redemption, knowing that the promise would someday be fulfilled.
Later, after Adam and Eve's children had children and their children had children and so on and so on, a man named Noah was chosen by God to build an ark to save himself and his family from a worldwide flood. But, Noah was still a flawed man; the Bible describes one of his least honorable moments in Genesis 9 when he got very drunk. But, the story continues on.
Noah's family line continued until it reached a man called Abram. He and his wife Sarai were both very old and childless. God promised them that they would have many descendants. Instead of trusting their God, Abram and Sarai laughed; Sarai even decided that she was smarter than God and told Abram to sleep with her handmaiden, a woman who would actually be able to have kids. But, God had a better plan and Sarai gave birth to Isaac.
Isaac had a few sons, Esau and Jacob. Jacob was a sneaky one. He managed to receive his older brother Esau's blessing AND birthrights, by lots of trickery.
Judah, one of Jacob's sons, was most definitely one of those creepy people you'd never want at your Christmas dinner. He had twin sons called Perez and Zerah, but we discover through a barbaric, nasty account in Genesis 38 that the mother of these two sons was actually his daughter-in-law called Tamar, who was dressed up as a prostitute.
Let me continue the story. Perez had several generations of children. Eventually, he had a son named Salmon. Salmon and a prostitute named Rahab (that name should sound familiar... hint: look up Joshua 2) had a son named Boaz.
Boaz did the unthinkable and married a Moabite named Ruth. Back in those days, foreigners were considered "unclean", so this was quite a controversial decision.
Boaz and Ruth had a son named Obed, who had a son named Jesse, who had a son named David.
David was a shepherd boy, the least of his brothers. He also made a lot of pretty bad mistakes in his lifetime, like the whole Bathsheba hoopla ( 2 Samuel 11).
His son, Solomon, wasn't any better. He used his power and money to do all sorts of things all for himself, like building personal gardens, hiring tons and tons of people to work for him, and all sorts of extravagances (Ecclesiastes 2:4-9). Solomon also started worshipping idols after being pressured by his foreign wives.
All of these people were less-than-heroic, if you look at these faults. Yes, many of them did great things for God, but deep down inside, they were doubters, lusters, liars, drunkards, and overall, sinners. But, God had a plan. Solomon had a son, who had a son, who had a son, and eventually, one of Solomon's descendants, a man named Jacob, had a daughter named Mary!
So, in the end, God used the most unlikely people to carry out His perfect plan to redeem mankind. I think we can learn great lessons from this entire story. Anyone, and I mean, ANYONE, can be used by God. So, this Christmas, we shouldn't love and give to others just out of obligation or tradition, we should do it to be part of God's story, knowing that he has a plan for everyone, even those people you wouldn't want at your Christmas dinner. And this shouldn't just be during Christmastime either. Let's do it all year.
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