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Daily Archives: December 25, 2019

Making Room for God

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“And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7).

There is this scene in the movie The Nativity where, with Mary ready to deliver, Joseph frantically runs from house to house, pounding on doors, hoping someone will open up to him a place for the Christ child to be born.  At the last he goes to the local inn, where he is told there’s no room for them there.   Finally some man point them in the direction of an animal stall, and there the Lord Jesus is born.

It has been like this ever since—meaning, there is hardly room in the hearts of men for the Savior of the world.  Usually, it is only the place of last resort, the place where Christ finds for Himself a home; by this is meant a lowly and humble heart.

The Psalmist writes, “In his pride the wicked does not seek Him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God” (10:4 NIV).  There is room for all manner of others things—careers, academic pursuits, investments, sports, and even good things such as family and friends; but unfortunately, few have room for God.  Even among professing Christians, ‘there is little space in their crowded lives for the God who loves them.

Our Lord said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” — that is, He is taking the initiative; He so wants to come in and “dine” with us, He so wants entry into our lives for the purpose of relationship.  Yet few respond, and they do not know what they are missing.

I think if Bethlehem only knew who it was that was to be born there that day things would have been different.  Folks would have been rushing to be the one in whose home the Messiah would be born.  And you would think that people today would welcome Christ into their hearts if they only knew.  Oh but they do know!  Jesus Christ is no secret; there is an awareness of the Christian message such as has never been before.  While secularists seek to wipe all vestiges of God and Jesus from the public square, still there are 100’s of thousands of churches, millions of Christians, hundreds of Christian TV channels, programs, and radio stations.  What is remarkable though is the diminishing space Jesus occupies in the hearts and souls of the populace.

We make room for God by letting Him in—and not just initially.  So many have ‘received’ Jesus at some point in their lives, but that doesn’t mean He occupies much space in them.  The idea is that He take up all the space of the human heart, every nook and cranny.  Of course, it is a process; I know this from personal experience.  But that is just it, it is a process, one we undergo willingly, wanting God to fill us up to the brim, being God totally.

We make room for God by spending time with Him.  The thing is, He not only wants to be with us, He loves spending time with us.  He’s knocking at the door not as some unwanted salesman, but as one who earnestly desires to have dinner with us.  Christianity is relationship; eternal life is not some place on a cloud with a harp, it is knowing the Father and the Son (see John 17).  We get to know Him—we get to know Him!  And this by spending time with Him, the most precious minutes and hours you will ever spend during the course of a day.

We make room for God in our thoughts.  That is, we learn to be thinking not only about Him, but the thoughts He thinks.  In the Bible it’s called renewing the mind.  We come to see things much differently than the way they appear; we grow to have God’s perspective.  If you love someone, you think about him (or her); anyone who has ever been in love understands this.  This too is a process, but oh what a process it is, to have a mind occupied with the One who made me and loves me.

We make room for God by obeying Him—not as some taskmaster, but as one who has our best interests at heart.  Father knows best.  Don’t we as earthly parents command our children for what is good for them?  We tell them not to play in the street.  We command them to stop fighting between each other.  We warn them about touching a hot stove.  God’s rules make for the best of living; in doing what He wants we find a life that far exceeds one lived apart from Him.  Obedience to God is a privilege; without Christ at the center of our hearts it is impossible to do what God wants, as we are without Him still bound by sin.  Obedience to God tells Him we love Him and appreciate what He does for us.

As for me, there is nothing I want more than more of God.  More than anything on the face of the earth I want to have supper with Jesus Christ.  You needn’t knock, Lord—the door is wide open; please do come in and make Yourself at home.  My home is Your home, and my heart is Yours for the taking.

God Delights in My Well-being

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“Let them shout for joy and rejoice, who favor my vindication; and let them say continually, ‘The Lord be magnified, Who delights in the prosperity of His servant’” (Psalms 35:27 NASB).

The word is shalom— the Lord delights in the the shalom of His servant.  Most of us understand this particular word as meaning “peace,” and that it does; however, it is much, much broader than that.  It is translated  by multiple different words (though peace or a variant is used over 150 times) and has the overall sense of completeness, soundness, welfare, and peace.  It might well be rendered, “Welfare” (ESV) or, “Well-being” (NIV).  A more comprehensive look at it would be as follows:

Completeness (in number)

Safety, soundness (in body)

Welfare, health, prosperity

Peace, quiet, tranquility, contentment

Peace, friendship

of human relationships

with God, especially in covenant relationship

Peace (from war)

Peace (as an adjective)

—not a bad list, and things I think most folks would want present in their lives, things people pursue all the time although in all the wrong places.

The thing to pick up here is that God delights, not in these things in and of themselves, but when they characterize the life of one of His children.  In other words, it pleases God that His son or daughter possess these qualities.  That is, when you or I are safe and sound, when we’re healthy and prosperous, when we are at peace with God and men, when there is an absence of conflict, this delights God.

I could summarize it this way:  when I am happy, God is happy.

The apostle John conveys this selfsame message when he writes,  “Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John 1:2).

It is noteworthy the words “His servant.”  The thing is, I don’t believe God is so pleased when the ungodly prosper, because if you read and understand the Scripture, you will find that, for the most part, the achieve prosperity in all the wrong ways, or with the wrong motives — or, they use what they have for the wrong things.  Non-Christians prosper, for sure, and there are reasons for this; but if I read this right (and I believe I do), then His delight is aroused when it is His servant that experiences the well-being.  I note too:  it is His servant — that is, a man or a woman who serves Him.  This by definition would disqualify the person who professes to believe in God and His Son, Jesus, but who does nothing to demonstrate that faith.  I do think it is God’s heart for that person to prosper, but servanthood—as least as it is seen here in Psalm 35—is the prerequisite.

What else I pick up here is God’s heart.  He is certainly not stingy, and I don’t believe for a moment that He takes pleasure in  a child of His suffering conflict , sickness, and poverty.  I don’t see that anywhere.  I mean, though Jesus “was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich.”  And He doesn’t withhold things from us.  Just one Psalm back we read, “O fear the Lord, you His saints; for to those who fear Him there is no want.  The young lions do lack and suffer hunger;  but they who seek the Lord shall not e in want of any good thing” (34:9-10).  And in the all-too-familiar Psalm, Psalm 23:  “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. . .”  God’s heart is shalom, and it so pleases Him when His children possess it.

The Greek equivalent to shalom is eirene, and it means essentially the same thing.  Thus, when Jesus greets the brothers holed up behind locked doors and says, “Peace by with you,” He is not only imparting an overall sense of assuring calm, but those qualities that can be best described as well-being.

God is concerned for our welfare, and He is quite happy when we have it.  This is good news, that we’ve a God like this.  It is okay to feel good.  It is okay to enjoy the good things of God; He delights in that.  But let’s make sure we believe this about Him, and let’s be sure to posture ourselves rightly by taking on the attitude of a servant.