International (MNN) — Nine out of 10 Americans celebrate Christmas. But many do it as a cultural holiday, not a matter of faith. A recent LifeWay study indicated that less than half of Americans will go to church around Christmas.
Whether you live in the US or not, Ron Hutchcraft with Hutchcraft Ministries says if you know Christ, you are like the shepherds in Luke chapter 2. These ordinary people were entrusted with a glorious message to tell others, against all human odds.
“If we were alive at that time, we couldn’t think of a more unlikely choice for angels to entrust their message to [than] shepherds,” Hutchcraft says. Shepherds were lowly and sometimes of questionable character. The ones in the gospel accounts were working “third shift” jobs.
Yet God chose them to be the first witnesses to the birth of Jesus!
“Who are the primary messengers of the gospel [today]? It’s not the people that would be perceived as professional ‘God salesmen,’ like it’s their job. It’s the machinist and it’s the teacher, the mom, the cancer survivor, the golfer, the soccer player,” Hutchcraft points out. “It’s the everyday person who’s in the best position, just like the shepherds.”
The parallels go further. The message the shepherds heard of “good news of great joy for all people” is meant for every person in your life today too!
“The message of our faith is summed up by the angel making the birth announcement with these words: “For to you is born this day a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord,’ or ‘Christ the Lord,’” says Hutchcraft.
(Stock image courtesy of drabbitod via Pixabay)
“The reason it’s such good news [comes from] three things that our message says about Jesus: First, we have a Savior for our sin. Then … we have a Messiah for what’s broken in our life. [Third,] we have a Lord for the things that we are afraid of. Boy, that is good news!”
Hutchcraft says the shepherds’ story was their superpower. They ran to find baby Jesus and His family in the stable, and then they spread the news about what they had seen. “And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them,” Luke 2:18 says.
Your story with Jesus is meant to reach people too. So what might you do even today?
“What a great thing to know that this message is supposed to be for all the people, [which] means that every person we know deserves a chance to hear this,” Hutchcraft says.
“How life-changing it is for us to look in the mirror and say, ‘I am someone’s chance. Yes, I’m ordinary, imperfect, sometimes my life is messy’ — think about the shepherds! — ‘but I am the one who’s in their life.
“I have Jesus by one hand, and I have some lost people by the other hand, and God has put me in a position to be the one to bring them together.’ That’s great news this Christmas, because your life really, really matters.”
Header image is a stock image courtesy of Dan Kiefer via Unsplash.
