12 Days of Christmas Devotional: Discovering the Real JesusCampione

## Day Four: Jesus is the Lamb of God. “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” — John 1:29 John was a community outcast who came out of the desert to prepare the way before Jesus came. His mission didn’t make him a very popular guy, but he never stopped, determined that all the world would understand and know Jesus when He came. And when Jesus finally came, and John the Baptist set his eyes upon the Man for whom he had been paving the way, the first thing he realized by the Holy Spirit was that Jesus was the “Lamb of God.” How gentle and innocent is the lamb? The Old Testament uses an unblemished lamb many times to speak of a perfect sacrifice. What else would we give God besides our very best? And here, John is calling Jesus just that: the very best. Except this is the most perfect and most unblemished lamb that can be sacrificed for the sins of man. Man cannot offer this lamb to God. But God offers Him for us. The Old Testament lamb enacted a covenant that protected the people from the plague of death, from sickness and from the consequences of their sins. Hebrews 8 says we have a better covenant , because Jesus is a better sacrifice with better blood. That means He provides EVERYTHING that the Old Testament lamb provided: forgiveness, healing , deliverance and blessing…and THEN SOME. It’s a better covenant so it has even better promises. I am so thankful for the blood that Jesus spilled as He declared Himself the once-and-for-all sacrifice to save us from the curse and death. The enemy is always trying to trick us with regret and shame. But the blood of Jesus is a tangible act of the LOVE OF THE FATHER and has already removed all sin, guilt and shame from our lives! We never have to live in guilt or condemnation another day of our lives. Say So: Jesus is the Lamb of God who took away my sin, and took away the curse, so that I am forever forgiven, forever redeemed and forever loved. Nothing can separate me from God’s presence because I’ve been brought into His presence by the blood of the lamb (Hebrews 10:19).