Listen Now
Dear friend,
A few months ago, my sister-in-law paid for me to have my DNA tested to help me discover my genealogy – my family line. One of her hobbies is tracing family lines as far back as history allows. Although my history doesn’t reach back very far, it turns out I’m related to most of Central and Eastern Europe!
Family trees matter in many cultures. But no family tree matters more than the one in the Bible tracing the ancestry of Jesus Christ. Two lines are recorded — His earthly father’s side and His mother Mary’s side. Both go all the way back to the beginning. These lists are full of hard-to-pronounce names, and almost all of them are fathers. But four mothers are named too.
Their names are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba. Each of these women had a messy past. People judged them. Their own communities pushed them away. Their stories include prostitution, widowhood, adultery, babies born outside marriage, rape, and poverty, mixed in with a few famous husbands. That’s enough drama for a TV mini-series! Yet God chose them to be in the family history of His Son, and we have their names today. He was not ashamed to allow them to become the great-great-great- (many greats) grandmothers of Jesus.
How did they end up on that list? Each woman, despite her desperate circumstances, found courage, made a change, and moved forward.
We learn something wonderful from this: God is not ashamed of you, even if your past is messy. Your past does not decide your future. With Jesus as your Savior, you can have a new beginning. Your new life can change the direction of your children’s lives too. It can change your family for generations to come. And that, my friend, changes communities from the inside out!
This Christmas, as you hear the story of Jesus’ birth and all that He came to do, don’t forget that there were four mothers in His earthly history who changed the direction of their lives — and their children’s too. God sent His Son to be born of a woman. He was not ashamed to write those mothers’ names down. God saw their courage and boldness to change, and He didn’t want them to be forgotten.
The Bible says God is still taking names today. He writes them in the Book of Life. When you believe Jesus is God’s Son, and ask Him to forgive your sins, He writes your name in that book. It stays there forever.
My name is written down. Is yours?
Reaching up with you,
Crystal Knapp
Editor-in-Chief
