'No Room At The Inn'

On the back of the last post, I was thinking about the Inn being a picture of the Church and I was reminded of the Christmas story.

Luke's gospel tells us in chapter 2 'And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.'

I would like to open this up a little and explain what the Holy Spirit has been showing me.
Mary and Joseph had been summoned, like everyone else, back to their hometown of Bethlehem to be counted in a census. Mary was heavily pregnant when they set off and by the time they arrived she needed to find a place to deliver the child within her. The child was coming soon. Any woman who has given birth will understand the urgency of such a situation. The baby will not wait past its appointed time.

Anyway, I imagine Mary and Joseph knocking on doors in Bethlehem, just like we see in the Nativity plays, and being told 'There is no room at the inn'. Here is the young woman about to bring forth the Son of God, and nobody wants to know. Mary and Joseph were only two people, I'm sure they could have been squeezed in somewhere but the lodgers at the inn wanted no interruption of their own comfort. They wanted no reminder of the realities of life and death and certainly no cessation of their feasting and festivities. The people were unaware that God Himself would have visited with them, would have been in the midst of them but they rejected Him and His presence, There was no room for the Son of God in those inns so He went elsewhere to a humbler place, came into the world away from the festivities and was laid humbly in a manger. The masses in Bethlehem missed it and they missed out. And this makes me wonder about something.

The Son of God is coming back to the earth and He will once again knock at the door of the Inn.
Rev 20:3 ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock’ - will He find room for Himself at the Inn that is the church?

There is a warning in my heart. So many people gather into the Inn to please themselves and be comfortable, just like those people of old in Bethlehem. With regard to the Saviour, they have declared ‘No room at the Inn’. So many are comfortable in the Inn, not wishing to be disturbed by the realities of life and death and are not conscious of the urgency of the time. Without the Son of God the inn is just another meeting place. A church is only a church because of the presence of God.
How sad to miss out on the presence of God and be concerned only with comfort and pleasure. How tragic to be satisfied with an ordinary inn and miss out on the church- the dwelling place of God. He will again leave that place and go to humbler surroundings where He will be recognised and received as the Son of God.

The Son is coming soon and He will not wait past the appointed time. We live in an urgent time. Praise God that He will find a people awaiting His arrival with excitement and wonder, just like the Magi and the shepherds. Not all have rejected Him. The church is alive and waiting for her King. Once again the heavenly host will accompany the Son of God to the earth and those who have made room for Him at the Inn will receive Him as their King.
Jesus makes a promise to those who make room for Him; ‘If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.’ Those who open the door will have sweet fellowship with the Son of God forever!

This Christmas, remember to open the door and welcome in the Son of God!
God Bless

The Good Samaritan Luke 10

Luke 10:30-35

Then Jesus answered and said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.’

I have been pondering this story for a while now.

In my meditations I believe God has shown me a picture of the church of Jesus Christ through this parable.

It doesn’t take much imagination to suppose that the poor, beaten traveler is a picture of any one of us before we knew the Lord. The world beat us down, stripped us bare and left us for dead on the roadside. I know it was that way for me. Before I knew Jesus, I was a disaster- a mixed-up, broken-down, pitiful creature.

It is of great importance in this story that the man went down a road he knew to be dangerous and he went of his own accord. Nobody forced him to go but danger wasn’t long in catching up with him. How many times have we deliberately entered a pathway we know to be dangerous despite every attempt at warning us to the contrary? But there are those of us who seem always to want to learn the hard way.

As I said, danger found him on this road and left him bloodied and bruised. It was in this state that we meet the other characters in this parable; the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan.

Anyway, I know there is much more that can be said about the characters in this part of the story but I will not dwell on it since this is not really what God was speaking to me in this instance.

What I want to look at is the Samaritan. Here is a man, despised by the religious, shunned by the righteous and rejected by the ruling classes.

Is this not a picture of our Saviour?  He was despised, shunned and rejected and yet He humbled Himself to stop and pick me up from the side of the road, where I lay dying in my own sin, and went about the business of making me clean. He had compassion, even though I had chosen this path for myself! My Saviour poured in the oil and the wine as the old song says-‘the kind that restoreth my soul’. He picked me up, bandaged my wounds and carried me when I was too weak to walk by myself.

What a Saviour!!

But here is the most exciting part that God has been showing me. Where did the Samaritan take the man to? He took him to the Inn right? He took care of the man at the inn.

He charged the innkeeper at the inn to take care of the poor man while he was away and gave him the money that he would need to carry out this request. He even promised to repay him for any extra he might spend when he returned.

So, is not the inn a great picture of the church? An inn in the New Testament times was not just a lodging place but a place of refuge, a place where one could stay and be cared for and nourished. Isn’t that the church? Far more than a lodging place-isn’t it a place where Jesus places the broken-those who have been beaten by the world and the religious- to be cared for and nourished to full health?

Hasn’t Jesus provided all the resources we need to take care of the down-trodden who enter the inn in the same state we once came? Hasn’t he given us His Spirit to equip and strengthen us for the task?

What more do we need?

If that’s not enough, we have his promise to return. The Samaritan only left 2 denarii for the care of this man. That was equivalent to about 2 day’s wages in those days. That tells me that he wasn’t planning to stay away for too long. He was going to return soon.

Jesus is coming back soon to gather all those he has left at the inn. He will not delay much longer and no matter what we have spent to take care of his people, he will repay in full!!!

I want to encourage you, as God has been encouraging me, not be stingy with your resources. Jesus has given us everything we have in order that there is no lack at the Inn. Remember the state we were in when we first entered. Look around and see those who are broken, weary and in need of nourishment. Don’t worry about what it might cost, we cannot out-give Jesus. He will repay us for all we give to His people, in His name!

This whole story is positioned between two commands:

1. ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ … do this and you will live.

2. “Go and do likewise.”

Couldn’t be any clearer than that! Could it?

Ephesians 6- Prayer

Hi there,

God has been speaking to my heart recently about a specific aspect of prayer through this passage in Ephesians 6. (I know that there are many aspects of prayer, and I haven't disregarded those, but for the sake of this entry I will only write about one specific aspect.)

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.’

Prayer is a spiritual activity which takes place in a spiritual arena. Prayer is not just a conversation with the Lord, requiring participants, but a battle requiring soldiers. Of course there is the beauty of drawing near to the Lord in prayer, sitting at His feet and being in His presence, I do not discount that, however the Lord has been showing me that in prayer we are also participating in a spiritual battle in the spiritual realm.

As the people of God, we have an enemy who never rests from his attack on the people and plans of God. The Bible says he is ‘the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night’. Our enemy never relents.

We cannot saunter nonchalantly into this arena when we have so zealous an opponent. We must enter in with passion in our hearts, knowing well that it is indeed a battle. We are given a charge in 1 Peter with regard to the enemy; ‘your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him’. Our resistance is an active, not a passive stance. We must ‘be vigilant’, alert and wise to the wiles of our enemy. We must first of all recognise that we are in a battle before we will understand the need to be prepared. We cannot afford a blasé attitude when coming to pray.

Neither can we show up in civilian dress and expect not to be wounded by the fiery darts of the enemy. Our natural clothing offers no resistance whatsoever to the arrows of the evil one.

How ridiculous the thought of turning up to the battle field in ordinary clothes and trusting in them to protect us when the opposition has flaming arrows. The natural man has no protection against this enemy.

‘For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.’

Perhaps if we were wrestling against flesh and blood we would have some hope of overcoming our enemy, but we are not. Our natural selves have no ability to do battle with these powers. We cannot resist unless that resistance is borne out of something greater than us (‘He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world’). We cannot stand in our own strength, instead we must receive a strength greater than our own, and we cannot hope to prevail unless the weapons we fight with are mightier than any natural weapons (‘For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds’).

We must be clothed in the full armour of God. We must never think that we can enter in any other way. If it were possible to prevail in our own strength, why would we be commanded to put on the full armour of God? God knows the weakness of natural man and so He has provided all the equipment we need for the battle. Only the foolish discard this provision and head in to do battle by their own strength. Our victory depends on our understanding of the strategy of the enemy and the provision of our Leader.

There will be no victory any other way. Victory in prayer is based upon the victory Christ has already attained through His defeat of the enemy by His death and resurrection. Upon no other ground can man stand against the enemy. We have no victory of ourselves, we have no power of ourselves and we have no hope of ourselves. All we are and have is of Christ. ‘In him we live and move and have our being’.

Only as we, ourselves, are clothed in Christ is there any hope for us.  I am reminded of Saul’s attempt to clothe David in his armour before he fought the mighty Goliath. It did not work. Only that which David had from his own relationship with God would fit him. We cannot appropriate someone else’s faith or armour. We must each receive from God personally. David’s experiences with the lion and the bear had taught him the power and provision of God. As he walked through those trials he saw God’s faithful hand to strengthen and preserve him. David faced the enemy in the strength of the Lord and so must we.  

David was indignant as he listened to the taunts of Goliath. “For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?” He understood the authority Israel had as the army of God to close the mouth of the enemy. We too ought to be indignant at the taunts of the enemy and enter in to the battle with the same heart and the same authority as David-knowing well that ‘the battle is the Lord’s’.

As Paul writes of the Christian’s need to be clothed in the armour of God, his military language reminds me  that we are called to be part of the Lord’s army not the Lord’s social club. As such, there is a much greater sense of urgency and value with regard to prayer. Prayer is not an activity that we do purely for our benefit, to make us feel better or more spiritual. It is not purely for the benefit of man that we pray, although we do benefit greatly from praying, but also that God may be able to achieve His purposes as we yield to Him.

God has a great plan that has been set in place since before the foundation of the world. Prayer is one of the major ways that we, as children of God, partake in His plan. Prayer is much more than pouring out our burdens, it is stepping up to the mark and declaring that we will be available to our King to ‘fight the good fight of faith’. In us He has a people prepared to stand on the ground He has conquered and resist any attack from any impostor who tries to claim what does not belong to him. We are the resistance, we are the army, we are the Church.