This week we entered the advent season. Advent means coming or arrival. It refers to the arrival of Jesus, God the Son, who became a man, born as a baby 2,000 years ago in Israel. Each Christmas people celebrate the birth of Jesus because he saves people from their wrongdoing and enables them to live rightly with God and for God. Anyone who trusts and obeys Jesus is adopted into God’s royal family and experiences his joy, peace, and abundant life now and forever. That’s what makes Christmas so meaningful.
Unfortunately, some people have not heard of Jesus, do not believe his divinity, or have not yet accepted his salvation. For some the merriment of Christmas traditions, the warm emotions shared with family and friends, or even disappointment or heartache at the holiday time have crowded out the glorious blessing of Jesus. Has that happened with you? Years ago I head a story of a Christmas pageant where children were reenacting events surrounding Jesus’ birth. Here is the context. In the Bible it says, when Mary was about to give birth to Jesus, she and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem to be counted in a Roman census. When it came time to give birth they could not find a guest room, so the Bible says Jesus was born in a stable and had a manger as a crib (Luke 2:1-7). However, here’s how the children depicted that scene as their families, friends, and community members watched in the audience. Joseph inquired at several inns only to be turned away again and again, because they were full. With each rejection, Mary’s need grew more urgent as her time was near. Finally at the last possible inn, Joseph knocked. The inn keeper, played by a special needs child, answered. He stated his line from the script that there was no room in the inn. Distraught Joseph and Mary turned to walk away. The innkeeper boy’s eyes welled with tears. He wasn’t sure what to do. This didn’t seem right. He finally called out, “Wait, you can have my room.” The audience was shocked. Murmurs rippled through the crowd. When the play had finished, some felt disappointed in the one scene where the innkeeper didn’t get it quite right. In contrast, others felt like the pageant could not have been any more right, for it endearingly conveyed the response we should all have regarding Christmas. The savior of the world has come, will you make room for him in your heart?
Jesus created you and loves you. He wants you to be with him, to be like him, and to do what he does. He alone makes this possible, because he died to pay the death penalty for your wrongdoing and rose again to give you victory over sin and an ever better way of living. Jesus taught and demonstrated that he is the way, the truth, and the life. No one can be reconciled with God, experience his healing of their brokenness, and enjoy his abundant fulfillment except through Jesus (John 14:6). If you haven’t come to trust Jesus as your savior, you can. Just confess your wrongdoing, receive his forgiveness, and ask him to show you and enable you to live rightly. Then follow Jesus’ example as documented in the Bible. Here are a few practical ways of making room in your life for Jesus.
Jesus is the Truth, So Make Room for Truth
Ask God to help you develop a desire and a discernment for truth. The greatest truth is the good news that Jesus loves everyone, is calling them to himself, and saves those who turn to him by faith. Share that with people. Tell them how great God is and what he has done in your life. Pass on the lessons you are learning from God’s word, the Bible. Although others may be dishonest, corrupt, misinformed, slanderous, gossipers, and prone to cancel. You should be wise, informed, honest, open, genuine, and trustworthy. Think critically and let God renew your mind (Romans 12:1-2). Don’t fall for confirmation bias or be compromised by the persuasive misrepresentation of godly values in mainstream culture. By the grace and power of God, act as salt and light to promote what is good, loving, kind, and true (Matthew 5:13-16; Philippians 4:8).
Jesus is the Way, So Make Room for Mission
Jesus told his followers, “As the Father has sent me, so am I sending you” (John 20:21). If you have come to trust Jesus as your savior, let him also counsel, guide, train, and empower you as lord. He wants you to represent him so others can come to a personal, saving relationship with God also. You have a new role as his minister of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:17-21). Make that your primary mission with family, friends, coworkers, and strangers. Fit all your other responsibilities around that. Seek out the least, the last, the lost, and the outcast. Share God’s love and salvation with them. Teach them to obey all that Jesus has commanded (Matthew 28:18-20). As you are involved in God’s mission of saving others, he changes you to become more like Jesus, which is the most glorious and worthwhile way to live.
Jesus is the Life, So Make Room to Change
Following Jesus goes well beyond being a nice person, adhering to a few religious practices, or praying for God to bless you and your agenda. It’s not adding God to your life, it’s allowing God to replace your life with his. Radically, following Jesus involves denying yourself, taking up your cross daily and going his way (Luke 9:23-26). It involves putting God and others before yourself. Find your greatest pleasure in pleasing God. Be open to viewing people and circumstances through God’s eyes. Invest your God given time, talents, and treasure to help others more than to indulge yourself. At times, it will be painful, costly, messy, and uncomfortable. Some people may hate and reject you as they did Jesus. But it’s worth the sacrifice and opposition for the godly gain it brings about in you and those who receive your living testimony.
Jesus is Love, So Make Room to Love
God is love (1 John 4:8). Thus, your life in Jesus is really a life of love. Jesus loves people so much that he joyfully gave his innocent life to rescue people who were his enemies, hoping as many as possible would receive his gift of salvation (Romans 5:8; Hebrews 12:2). Jesus’ embrace has no bounds. He loves utterly and unconditionally. We love because God first loved us (1 John 4:19). Don’t limit your love. Make room for Jesus to love through you. Let him turn people’s despair into hope, darkness into light, enslavement into freedom, division into unity, trouble into peace, bitterness into forgiveness, destruction into restoration, and hatred into love. Look beyond people’s behavior to the value they have as God’s precious creation. Tenderly expose wrongdoing for the harm that it causes, but accept the person doing the wrong where they are at. Then, as God enables, help them move forward into all they can become in Jesus. Loving like this will mean sacrificially laying down your life (John 15:13). Like the sweet boy in the pageant, you will need a childlike faith to let go. But as you trust and obey–giving of yourself, God fills you with more of himself.
Conclusion
As you prepare for Christmas this advent season I pray you draw ever closer to God through Jesus. He is the reason for the season. He is the reason for all of life. As the way, the truth, and the life, allow him to redirect your purpose, passions, and pursuits. Ask him to expand your understanding and proclamation of truth. Let him work through you as his voice, his heart, his hands and his feet. Soon there will be another advent. In God’s perfect timing, Jesus will come back to earth to consummate his kingdom. He will reward believers and they will reign with him. He will judge unbelievers, vanquish evil, and establish eternal righteousness. This Christmas and every day make room to love like Jesus does so many more people can know God and prepare for Jesus’ return.