Great stuff from Jared Wilson in a handout his church gives out when they are giving stuff away for free:
"There is a misconception floating around that the message of the Christian church is “be a better person.” We know you can get this message anywhere, from any religion or no religion at all. We are not giving things away because we think it will make us “be better people.” (We don’t think that works anyway.)
The real message of the Bible, and the message of Christmas, is that God “incarnated” in flesh in the person of Jesus Christ to live the “better person” life none of us could, to sacrificially die in our place to forgive all of our sins, and to rise again to secure the promise of eternal life. This is what the Bible calls “the riches of Christ.” And to receive these riches, we need only stop trusting our efforts to “be good” and begin trusting that Jesus was good on our behalf. If we will believe that Jesus died for our sins and was resurrected for eternal life, we will be forever forgiven and free."
read the full thing here