Make Room for Jesus

Luke 2:7, “They laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.”

For 4,000 years the world had been looking for Christ. When he finally arrives he is laid in a borrowed feed trough.

He could have come in grandeur and in the glory of the wealthy. But he came poor and went down into a manger…

The manger wasn’t the only thing borrowed for Jesus. He borrowed a donkey to ride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. His corpse borrowed a grave…

When the Prince of Heaven came down what kind of reception did he meet? There were no hallelujahs from the people. 

No sooner the news comes that he is born and the sword of Herod comes unsheathed and follows him…ultimately to Calvary. Jesus was born on death row.

There is no room for him. What nation wants him today? Does our nation want him? Suppose we put it to a popular vote. I don’t believe there is a state in our union that would vote for him. Does the church want him? We have the institution but rarely act like the body of Christ. We deny the power so I think most churches don’t truly want him. 

Where is there room for the Son of God? There are some who wonder how people can commit suicide. It’s no wonder to me. When people feel there is no room for them, that no one wants them; when they feel that they are a burden to their friends and a burden to themselves, it drives them mad.

But then look at the Bethany home. It was there that Martha received Jesus into her home. It was the best thing Martha ever did. Little did she know that her loved brother was going to die soon, when she made room for Jesus.

When all earthly hope had failed and they had given up, then the sisters sent for Jesus.

Little did Martha think that the teacher she was entertaining was the Resurrection and the Life! When he saw Mary and Martha weeping, the heart of the Son of God was moved to compassion and Jesus wept.

He commanded them to take the stone away and he spoke, “Lazarus, come forth.” That was the happiest home on earth that night as Lazarus emerged. That’s what happens when we make room for Jesus.

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Don’t Put Chains Back On!

If we try to prove to God that we love Him, it is a sure sign that we do not love Him.

We are loved by God because of His unfettered grace. Don’t put chains back on!  We don’t prove our love to others. We simply love them and they recognize it or don’t.  Either way, we love them. The same is true with God. He knows whether we love Him.  If we have to prove it, it is more for our own satisfaction and justification of our own lives when it was Jesus who justified us through the cross.

Do you really Believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life?

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Do you really believe that? Do your actions reflect your beliefs? Are you constantly and urgently going and sharing your faith in words and deed?

You encounter that friend or that person at work. You think about inviting her to church, or starting a conversation about spiritual matters, or giver her a Bible as  a gift. But you never move forward. Why?

You have begun to rationalize. You are giving yourself objections to your to conviction to go. There are a number of objections we offer ourselves.

That is not my spiritual gift. Everyone is called to be obedient to the Great Commission. Those who do not have the gift of giving or mercy are still required to give and show mercy.

That is what we pay our pastor and church staff to do. Someone please show me in the Bible where this is the case and expectation.

I don’t have time. If we don’t have time to share the love of Christ, it’s really not a priority in our lives. Is there anything more important than someone having a relationship with Jesus as Lord and Savior? If nothing is more important, how can we not have time to do it?

 I don’t want to impose my beliefs on others. Can you imagined the Apostle Paul standing before a crowd and saying, “I really have some good news for you,but I don’t want to impose my beliefs on you. I’ll just keep my beliefs to myself. After all, religion is really a private matter”? Of course not!

 I am an introvert. Introversion isn’t an excuse. It’s an opportunity to pray for opportunities that fit your personality.

I hope this Christmas season you and I will not keep God’s most important gift to ourselves. I hope we can share it with the world around us.

Who Are You Imitating?

Discipleship in the church has often been defined as the solitary pursuit of information. It meant having a Daily Quiet Time by myself where I read the Bible silently and reflected on it internally. It meant spending time alone in prayer. It meant learning to practice spiritual disciplines by reading books about fasting and meditation and solitude. I assumed that acquiring more biblical knowledge, theological insight, and spiritual practices would change me and make me more like Jesus. Imitating someone who is helping me learn how to follow Jesus never occurred to me.

Simply seeking more information isn’t enough. Biblical discipleship is intrinsically relational because it is an invitation into a mentoring relationship.

The disciples learned to do the things Jesus did by actually imitating his way of life. As they grew in their competency, Jesus sent them out with his authority to do what they had seen Him do.

As the disciples began to multiply, they continued to follow the same pattern Jesus had set for them. 

Paul said, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (I Corinthians 11:1).

Paul shows us that Jesus-shaped discipleship begins with information, gets put into practice through imitation, and is ultimately released in a life of fruitful innovation.

It begins with revelatory information from God, and is combined with relational proximity where practical demonstration can be imitated. Once trained this way, rabbis then release their disciples to innovatively fulfill their own unique calling as they raise up another generation of disciples. 

If Our Good Works Could Save Us…

If our good works could save us then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. We would be like taxpayers with rights.

But if it is really true that I am a sinner saved by sheer grace–at God’s infinite cost–then there’s nothing He cannot ask of me.

Sheer grace has 2 edges to it:

1. It cuts away fear.
2. But if God loves us freely, despite our flaws and failures, then we are not our own.  We were bought with a price.

Martin Luther said, “We are saved by faith alone (not our works), but not by faith that remains alone.”

Discipleship and Consumerism are Mutually Exclusive!

Discipleship and consumerism are mutually exclusive!

We cannot consume our way into discipleship. All of us must become much more active in the equation of becoming life-long followers of Jesus.

When we recognize consumerism is counterproductive to discipleship, it leads to some challenging conclusions about the way we are seeking to fulfill our mission. What are we willing to stop doing that feeds a consumer culture? What cost are we willing to pay to begin developing a discipleship culture?

Some will point out that Jesus attracted large crowds everywhere he went. But attracting large crowds was not the primary means of Jesus’ mission. The authority of his teaching, his ability to heal, and his absolute power over evil was a strong draw to the disaffected, the hurting, and the curious. Consumerism is not a modern phenomenon. People have always asked, “What’s in it for me?”

One of the problems in dealing with people in a large crowd is that it allows for very little personal accountability. A mob mentality feeds the human tendency to seek reward without responsibility. Jesus saw the consumerism of the crowd was only going to get worse, so he steadily increased the challenge of his teaching, telling the crowd eternal life was found by eating his flesh and drinking his blood (John 6:54). By the time he finished, most of the crowd had disappeared along with some who had considered themselves his disciples.

Jesus made it clear that his followers were to be producers, not consumers. He described us as branches who abide in the vine and produce good fruit that lasts. Jesus chose to prune the consumeristic crowd back to twelve disciples and extended family because this is the best context to live out the message of Jesus and multiply that way of life in the lives of others.

Reason #4,196 I Love Dogs