NO ROOM IN THE INN

Five little words in the Gospel of Luke say it all: "No Room in the Inn."

There is a certain pathos in those words. "No room for You here." That was the beginning of the Master's life. That was the very first thing the world said to Jesus Christ, and that experience would plague Him the remainder of His days on this earth, and, indeed, even to this present moment. "No room! We're just too crowded! Sorry, we're full up! No vacancy! Try again some other time. No room for You here right now. So, if you'll please excuse me, I've got a million and one things to see about. It's too bad, but there's just no room!"…

Harry Emerson Fosdick once put it like this: "The crucial difficulty of Christ's life which denied Him the service He longed to render, closed to Him the hearts He longed to change and brought Him at last to Calvary...was something so simple, so familiar, so little recognized as a tragic evil -- so universal among us all, that one almost hesitates to name it -- inhospitality. No Room!"

Let's be honest now. Isn't that our problem? Yours and mine? We get so busy, so tired, so preoccupied with the incessant demands on our crowded lives that we shut out the very birth of the Master we so long to know…

Won't you let Him in this Christmas? Won't you offer Him your warmest hospitality? Won't you welcome Him into your life this year with open arms? Won't you receive Him into your life as never before? Won't you make room for Him? 

-- Rev. Dr. James W. Moore 

#5758