Because of Bethlehem by Max Lucado

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Lucado Loves Christmas

At Christmas, someone will ask the Christmas questions: What’s the big deal about the baby in a manger? Who was he?

God knows what it’s like to be human. He’s been there. He’s been here. Because of Bethlehem, we have a friend in heaven. Because of Bethlehem, we have a Savior in heaven.

He called himself “God with us.” Not just “God made us.” Not just “God thinks of us.” Not just “God above us.” But God with us. God where we are.

We need this message more than ever because we live in anxious times.

God Has a Face

Jesus entered our world not like a human but as a human.

A chief reason he came as a human is this: he wants you to know that he gets you. He understands how you feel and has faced what you face.

Jesus is not “out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.”

Saved From Ourselves

The sinful nature is all about self: pleasing self, promoting self, preserving self. Sin is selfish.

The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.

The English name Jesus traces its origin to the Hebrew word Yeshua. Yeshua is a shortening of Yehoshuah, which means “Yahweh saves.” We may not see the connection between the name Jesus and the phrase “save his people from their sins,” but his earthly father Joseph would have.

God saves. Jesus was not just godly, godlike, God hungry, God focused, or God worshipping. He was God. Not merely a servant of God, instrument of God, or friend of God, but Jesus was God.

God saves, not God empathizes, cares, listens, helps, assists, or applauds. God saves.

Hope for the Hole-idays

In spite of the chaos, Christ came. Through a scandalous pregnancy, an imposed census, an untimely trip, and an overcrowded inn, God triumphed in Mary’s story. And he triumphed in Matthew’s genealogy.

Chaos cannot keep Christ out of his world. The Messiah was born not because of his ancestors but in spite of them. Tamar was abandoned. Ruth was an immigrant, and Rahab was a harlot. David was an adulterer. Solomon was a philanderer. The family tree of Jesus is gnarled and crooked.

In the prayer journal of King David, we read this question: “When all that is good falls apart, what can good people do?” (Psalm 11:3). Isn’t David’s question ours?

Curiously, David didn’t answer his question with an answer. He answered it with a declaration. “The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord is on his throne in heaven” (Psalm 11:4).

David’s point is unmistakable: When everything shakes, God remains unshaken. He is in his holy temple. His plan will not be derailed. God is unaffected by our storms. He is undeterred by our problems.

God has made a business out of turning tragedy into triumph. He did with Joseph, with Moses, with Daniel, and, most of all, he did with Jesus on the cross.

It’s Never Too Late

Image by Finn Petersen from Pixabay

Jesus comes not with a list of things for you to do but with a list of things he has already done and will do.

Jesus lifts burdens; he doesn’t add to them.

Worship Works Wonders

As Revelation 4:8 puts it, “Day and night, they never stop saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy.’”

The word worship actually evolved from the Old English word weorthscipe. To worship, then, is to ascribe worth to someone or something. Worship happens anything you turn your heart toward heaven and say, “You are worthy.”

Worship might not be the word you’ve used to describe your passion, yet the term fits. Anytime we trust an object or activity to give us life and meaning, we worship it. When we make good things the ultimate things, we set ourselves up for disappointment.

For your own sake do what the angels did: make a big deal about the arrival of the King.

Worship verbally. “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name” (Hebrews 13:15).

Worship in community. “There was…a multitude of the heavenly host praising God” (Luke 2:13). Something happens in corporate worship that does not happen in private worship.

Worship demonstrably. Let your body express what your heart is feeling. And let your heart be awakened by your body. As David put it in Psalm 141:2, “May the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.”

Give Jesus the gift the angels gave him, the gift of praise.

God Guides the Wise

Holiday time is highway time. Ever since the magi packed their bags for Bethlehem, the birth of Jesus has caused people to hit the road. We’re all travelers, all sojourners. In order to find Jesus, every one of us needs direction. God gives it. The story of the wise men shows us how.

God uses the natural world to get our attention. Earth and stars form the first missionary society.

Humility Shines

Consider the counsel of the apostle Paul: “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought” (Romans 12:3).

G.K. Chesterton wrote, “How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky.”

Humility. The moment you think you have it, you don’t. Pursue it anyway.

A recurring message of Scripture is that God loves the humble heart. “Though the Lord is supreme, he takes care of those who are humble” (Psalm 138:6).

He gives honor: “Humility goes before honor” (Proverbs 15:33). And this reassurance: “He crowns the humble with salvation” (Psalm 149:4).

“Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 16:5).

Ponder your achievements less; ponder Christ’s more. Spend less time on your throne and more at his cross. Brag on his work, not yours.

Perhaps Today

In Bethlehem, the just-born Jesus slept. When he returns “the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

At his first coming few noticed. At his second “all the nations of the world will be gathered before him” (Matthew 25:32).

In Bethlehem, Joseph placed Jesus in a manger. At his return Jesus will be seated on a throne: “The Son of Man will come again in his great glory, with all his angels. He will be King and sit on his great throne” (Matthew 25:31).

God has a timeline. And because of Bethlehem, we have an idea where we stand on it. As the apostle John said, “My dear children, these are the last days” (1 John 2:18). We enjoy the fruit of the first coming but anticipate the glory of the second.

If you knew Jesus was coming tomorrow, what would you do today? Then do it! Live in such a way that you would not have to change your plans.

Crown, Cradle, and Cross

Jesus took “the very nature of a servant” (Philippians 2:7). He became like us so he could serve us! He entered the world not to demand our allegiance but to display his affection.

By the way, Jesus has not surrendered his earthly body. The incarnation that began in Bethlehem continues at this moment in the heavens. When Jesus ascended, he did so in a human body.

Bow before him. Humble yourself before the One who humbled himself for you. And to think, it all began in the most inconspicuous of places: a hay box in Bethlehem.

It’s Good-Bye to the Bents

As King David wrote, “You made my whole being; you formed me in my mother’s body. I praise you because you made me in an amazing and wonderful way. What you have done is wonderful… All the days planned for me were written in your book before I was one day old” (Psalm 139:13-14, 16).

God made you on purpose with a purpose. He interwove calendar and character, circumstance and personality to create the right person for the right corner of the world, and then he paid the price to take you home.

In the manger God loves you; through the cross God saves you.

You, me, and the Christmas tree. Picked, purchased, and pruned. Trust God’s work. Like the Christmas tree, you’re going to look much better without the bents.

Every Day a Christmas, Every Heart a Manger

God was content to enter the world in the presence of sleepy sheep and a wide-eyed carpenter. No spotlights, just candlelight. No crowns, just cows chewing cud.

God made so little of his Son’s coming. He didn’t even circle the date on the calendar. Ancient Christmases bounced from date to date before landing on December 25. Only in the fourth century did the church choose December 25 as the date to celebrate Jesus’ coming.

And you wonder if God has a place for a person like you. Find your answer in the Bethlehem stable.

It really comes down to that: God loves us. The story of Christmas is the story of God’s relentless love for us.

Let him love you. You might question his actions, decisions, or declarations. But you can never, ever question his zany, stunning, unquenchable affection.

The moment Mary touched God’s face is the moment God made his case: there is no place he will not go. If he is willing to be born in a barnyard, then expect him to be at work anywhere—bars, bedrooms, boardrooms, and brothels. No place is too common.

When Christ was born, so was our hope.

Listen as God whispers, “No mess turns me back; no smell turns me off. I live to live in a life like yours. Every heart can be a manger. Every day can be a Christmas. Let ‘Silent Night’ be sung on summer nights. Let Advent brighten the autumn chill. The Christmas miracle is a year-long celebration.”

May this prayer be yours:

My Heart, Your Manger

Like the stable in which you lay,

My heart is simple, frail as hay.

But if you would within me stay,

Make my heart your manger, I pray.

Make my world your Bethlehem,

Centerpieced with heaven’s Son.

Make this night a shepherd’s sky,

Quickened bright with holy dawn.

Rush the air with cherub wings.

Brush this earth. Let angels sing.

A glimpse of your face.

A taste of your grace.

Be born in this place.

I pray.

Amen