Inside Christmas: Life With Emmanuel, God With UsSample

Making Room for God as the IN-Keeper of Your Life

God perfectly planned the birth of Jesus. As much as we want to throw shade on the coldhearted act by the innkeeper for rejecting the mother of Jesus, ready to birth the savior of the world, we know that Jesus’s humble beginning was intentional.  

But what about the countless unintentional times? Jesus has continued to hear those very same words day after day by hundreds of millions of people, including us, His very own.

“There’s no room.”

The Bible says that a decree had gone out from the emperor, demanding that everyone return to their hometown to be registered. At this time, there would have been a mass migration of people all going to the same areas.  The marketplaces were crammed with the masses, and the cities were bustling with business. It sounds like Christmas!

Stressed, overcommitted, and swept up in the political drama of the time, kept the innkeeper from recognizing not just a God opportunity but that God himself was at his door. 

This month we celebrate that same moment in history, and we are using the same excuses the innkeeper had 2000 years earlier. 

We are each charged with being the in-keeper of our own lives. Our responsibility is to guard our own heart and soul (our mind, will, and emotions), making room for what Jesus came for, to do life together with Him. 

What are some of the things that keep your heart and mind full, overbooked, stressed, causing you to say, “there’s no room”?

Not only are there God opportunities waiting for you, but Jesus Himself wants to do everyday life with you on the IN-side.

Pray- 

God, I ask forgiveness for putting everything else above you.  I create a space for you within my mind and heart today. I say come in and do life with me. I thank you, Jesus, for coming and being EMMANUEL, God with us.

Read-

Luke 2:1-7 AMP 

“Now in those days a decree went out from [the emperor] Caesar Augustus, that all the inhabited world (the Roman Empire) should be registered [in a census]. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone went to register for the census, each to his own city. So Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register with Mary, who was betrothed to him, and was with child. While they were there [in Bethlehem], the time came for her to give birth, and she gave birth to her Son, her firstborn; and she wrapped Him in [swaddling] cloths and laid Him in a manger, because there was no [private] room for them in the inn.”

Proverbs 4:23 KJV

“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”