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Fresh Start Devotionals

A Blessed Life 1 Cor. 15:14 “and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.” In the Christmas Classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” George Bailey has the opportunity to see what the world would be like if he’d never been born. If he was never born, he wouldn’t have been able to rescue his brother when he fell into the icy pond and his brother would have drowned. And of course, his brother would not have been able to be a war hero and save the lives of other soldiers, like he did. Bailey’s wife would have been an old maid if he hadn’t been born and wouldn’t have had the joy of raising their children. If he hadn’t been born, he wouldn’t have been able to stop the pharmacist from putting poison instead of medicine into a capsule while filling a prescription and the pharmacist would have spent 20 years in jail for murder. If he hadn’t been born, no one would have been there to keep old man Potter from milking every last penny from the people. In general, everybody’s life would have been worse off if George Bailey hadn’t been born. But what if Jesus hadn’t been born and there was no Christmas? Paul comes close to addressing that issue in 1 Corinthians 15:14 when he asked what if there were no resurrection. His answer—preaching and faith would be in vain. Think about it for a moment. What if there was no Christmas. No, I don’t mean no presents or trees or decorations—I mean no Christmas. What if God didn’t look down from eternity into time and choose to become man so He could bear our sins, die on the cross, and raise from the tomb to secure our salvation? We’d be faithless, hopeless and left on our own. In this season we celebrate the defining moment in history—when God came down and dwelt among us to save us from our sins. It was a blessed life. Jim L. Wilson, Fresh Start Devotionals (Fresno, CA: Willow City Press, 2009).

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