34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. 38 I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father. (NIV)
There is no room in the inn we have recently heard in the Christmas story in the Gospel of Luke and now today we hear Jesus tell people that they are rejecting him because they don't have any room in their hearts for the word of God that he speaks. We would like to think that we would not have turned Mary and Joseph away from the inn and made them use the stable for Jesus birth. We would like to think that we would have hung on every word that Jesus spoke if we had been there and heard his teaching and seen his miracles. We would have made room we tell ourselves!
But let's be honest, there is still no room. We crowd Jesus out with many things that have much less value and yet have become far more important to us than our faith. It might not be obvious to us but the truth is that we continue to allow ourselves to become enslaved to the things of this world both physical stuff and emotional bondage that keeps us stuck. Jesus words are hard but they are true. The only way to break free from the bondage is to clean house and make room. Would there be a better time to start than today.
Some thoughts to ponder and share with others:
- How would the people of God understood their history and God's intervention if they denied the years of slavery in Egypt?
- Where have you seen Jesus crowded out of people's lives this Christmas season?
- What do you need to clear out of your life to make room for Jesus in the coming year?
- What can you begin doing on a daily basis to make sure that Jesus has room in your life?
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