In case it's not already obvious, I write a bunch ton. I write them and keep them in my email folder so that I can post them later. Hence, the post for today was written around Christmas of '12. I mention this primarily so that you don't get worried about me and send me care packages, although you can always send me money. I will make good use of it. Without further ado...
This little ditty showed up on Christmas morning via my best dead friend of late, Oswald Chambers.
Jesus Christ was born into this world, not from it. He did not emerge out of history; He came into history from the outside. Jesus Christ is not the best human being the human race can boast of— He is a Being for whom the human race can take no credit at all. He is not man becoming God, but God Incarnate— God coming into human flesh from outside it. His life is the highest and the holiest entering through the most humble of doors. Our Lord’s birth was an advent— the appearance of God in human form.
Just as our Lord came into human history from outside it, He must also come into me from outside. Have I allowed my personal human life to become a “Bethlehem” for the Son of God? I cannot enter the realm of the kingdom of God unless I am born again from above by a birth totally unlike physical birth. “You must be born again” (John 3:7). This is not a command, but a fact based on the authority of God. The evidence of the new birth is that I yield myself so completely to God that “Christ is formed” in me. And once “Christ is formed” in me, His nature immediately begins to work through me.
The inns of our hearts are often full of the guests we've chosen to grant haven.
Too full to find room for Him.
But rather than refusing to come, He is born outside the city.
Outside our comfort zone.
Outside of our hospitality.
If He was going to come for us, He was going to have to start His journey far from us.
He knocked.
We ignored.
He implored.
We refused.
In the Nativity narrative we discover that Jesus began His life in a barn because our homes were already too full of our preferences.
In order to make room for Him, we must purge.
We chose our stuff over Him.
We welcome our wants.
But for Him there was no room.
We like to keep Jesus in the manger out in back of our inn.
We don't like Jesus to be the Manager of our inn.
'Tis not the season for this kind of talk.
But Jesus is missed as much today as He was back at Christmas.
Bethlehem was not prepared to meet Jesus.
Are you prepared to meet Jesus?
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