After Christmas: The wages of sin. . .

Romans 6:23 -- For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Sin. The word has gained unpopularity among those that reject Christ in this day and age. People don't even like to use the word anymore. Too negative of a connotation. The pleasure and profit of sin is too appealing to them, though nothing more than people ploughing iniquity, sowing vanity, and reaping the same.

The shunning of the word sin is to shun the shame that came into the world with sin. However, no matter how much our society attempts to sugar-coat wrong-doing, or pretend that the shame of sin is not there, there is still a certain effect of shame in relation to sin.

Sin is the direct disobedience of God, and the shame associated with this is so tremendous that those that reject God have done whatever they can to make sin relative, and to erase the shame. But since they have been unable to do so, now their goal is to eliminate God. They think that if there is no God, there is no sin, and ultimately: no shame.

Well, I have news for those that have decided that God is not an important part of their lives. For the sinner, the end of sin is death. Not necessarily a physical death, but a spiritual death. Though the way of sin here on Earth may seem pleasant and inviting, the end is separation from God.

But through Christ there is salvation from this death by sin. From this condemnation the believer in Jesus finds liberty. The way of the believer is up-hill, the path is narrow, thorny, and beset, but everlasting life in the presence of the Almighty God is at the end of it.

The gift of God is eternal life. And this gift is through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ purchased it, prepared it, prepares us for it, preserves us to it; He is the All in all in our salvation.

He is the ultimate Christmas Gift.