Naughty or Nice

This is Michael's wife, Joanna. I'm not a writer and don't really want to start my own blog, so I asked Michael if I could share these thoughts rumbling around my head tonight here.

We went to the Christmas Tree Lighting at the village tonight. My 8-year-old daughter that I will call Biscuit for this post got to have an impromptu chat with Santa while we waited for the parade to begin. He was very sweet and chatted with her. Eventually he asked her if she had been naughty or nice. Her response was to hide behind me a bit and shrug her shoulders. He told her she still had a month to work on it.

A bit later she confided in me that she was a little bit afraid of Santa because she wasn't sure if she belonged on the 'Naughty List' or the 'Nice List.' She knows Santa isn't a real person in the North Pole with a host of elves making toys. But clearly there was a deeper concern on her mind. So I gave her the comfort (at least I hope it was a comfort) of the truth, "Biscuit, we're all on the 'Naughty List.' The Bible says we've all sinned and made mistakes. None of us is completely good and nice all the time. That's why Jesus came. He knew we couldn't work ourselves off the 'Naughty List.' So He came and died to pay the price for our sins so he could get us off."

But it goes deeper than that. He didn't just get us off the 'Naughty List.' He put us on a new list--'Holy and Righteous Sons and Daughters of God.' We can never deserve to be on that list. No matter how hard we might try we could never live up to those titles. Not even Mother Theresa could or would claim those titles. But He put us there all the same because He loves us. He gave His life for us so that we could be adopted into His family and be called the children of God. We do our best to follow Him because we love Him, not because there's anything we can do either way to earn or lose our place on the list.

We no longer have to worry about the naughty or nice lists. We are forgiven and loved beyond measure.