The Little Town of Bethlehem (part III)

By Odon Bulamba

As we know in Bethlehem where Jesus was born, the inner keepers had no room for him. When Joseph knocked at the door they would ask him, “where have you come from?” “Nazareth” Joseph replied, “you are poor, we don’t need you, what do you do?” “I am a carpenter”, “a carpenter cannot sleep in our beds because they are only for rich people, but if you had five thousand dollars we would consider.” Everywhere Joseph went he found no room to lay his head.
How many times does Jesus knock at our door as Revelation 3:20 says? He knocks at our door but we don’t open, we always say our house is full of visitors and we have no room for the Lord. Jesus says open the door I am here but because we have visitors we shut the Lord out. We would rather let jealously, hate, lies and so on in our lives then let Christ lay His head in our rooms.

Because we know Jesus is full of mercy and kindness He forgave the inner keepers and went where the cows were kept. This is how man treats creator God, but what is disappointing the most is that the animals accepted and treated Him well. When we are sinners the animal has much more value than you, when you are a sinner you cannot say that the animal doesn’t understand anything, it is you who doesn’t understand. What happened in Genesis 6 with Noah? Noah invited people to get in to the ark. People refused but when he invited animals, the animals didn’t even discuss but obeyed. The lion and the lamb were together. The lion hide his character and forgot that he was the king of the forest. The lion humiliated itself for Noah’s word. Christians today do not want to humiliate themselves; Christians today don’t want to give Christ room in their lives.

The Bible says that where the animals would eat is where Jesus was born. This was His cradle. What we eat is Jesus Christ with us? When we eat spiritual food is the plate we use spiritual? Is Jesus in that plate? The animals gave Him their plate but what do we give Him?

When the wise man came they worshipped the child and gave their presents. One of the wise men gave gold and you are the value of gold. The Bible says that Christians are compared to gold and that one day we will go through fire to see whether we are pure gold or not. Woe to you if your gold is not pure! When it will go through fire you will be consumed. It is now time to seek purity, it is now time to see wether you belong to God or not, it is now time to see if you can offer your gold to the Lord. This is done in worship. With worship we need humility. How many times as Christians do we humiliate ourselves? In little things we must show how pure we are before the Lord, and from here God will give us great things. We don’t say halleluiah in church when our household isn’t right or our relationship with our classmates or fellow workmates are not at peace with us Christians.

The wise men gave their presents and went. Once outside they wanted to go back but the Spirit said, “Do not go back to Herod but go back another way.” The Spirit of God never lets His children carry on with evil, the Spirit of God never makes a Christian plan evil, but today many Christians are traders and hypocrites. Many Christians don’t really want to follow God’s way. The wise men obeyed the Spirit of God and left. Herod waited for them but they didn’t go back to him.

The Bible says that Rahab cried and the way she cried touched everyone. This was a prophesy from Isaiah right up to the New Testament. She screamed because her child was killed. Why? Because Jesus Christ was born. When He was born the Bible says Herod became angry so he decided to kill all the children less than two years of age because the wise men never gave him a report. How much as Christians do we want to kill other peoples’ souls? When you speak against Jamie and Jamie finds out he will be shocked and it might lead him to spiritual death. When you speak against Michael and Michael listens, he might lose his peace for three days and you might make him regress spiritually. So Christians today have become like Herod, what we say with our mouth is not from the depths of our hearts. The Bible says that when Rahab cried, according to theology she had a five-year-old child, and this child couldn’t walk even at that age. He could speak and eat but couldn’t walk, and when the army came they found Rahab’s child and killed him. As for us who don’t grow spiritually and are happy with just words and don’t move on, if we don’t reach full maturity for Christ, Herod’s army will kill us all.

Example: Imagine a pit in front of the house and rain has filled it, the water in it will stay in the pit until it evaporates. What will become of this water? After one week the water will start to smell and mosquitoes will lay eggs. This house will then become victim to the mosquitoes. If you try to touch the water in depth you’ll find it slippery down the bottom, and if you take some water and test it, you’ll find many germs. Because this water stinks everybody walking pass will turn their heads away from the pit because the mosquitoes will attack you. This is the consequence of dirty water. This is to compare the Christians who don’t want to grow. The water is the Word of God but we don’t want to make progress, we don’t allow this water to saturate us. When you speak everybody can smell your bad breath, why? Your words have poison in them and you’ll see that wherever you go you will produce a negative spiritual health.

Most Christians speak negatively about others; they never speak about positive things.
This puts a barrier between Christians and puts out the fire of the Holy Spirit; this is against the Word of God. As you know in Corinthians it says love is this and that, but here we have the opposite. When you give presents like the wise men gave to Jesus do it with a sincere heart, when you give to others you give to God, but never show favouritism. It is good to give material things to others, but to give spiritual things is even more effective before God. You can give someone something but in the depths of your heart you are not happy, this is not a good gift. When you give, give it with a big smile from the depth of your heart. God who is the provider will give you more.

Give all your life to God because He wants to use it, God wants to teach you who He is. As little Bethlehem was neglected also accept to be neglected by people, also accept to keep the wheat in you to produce bread in the house of God. It is more important to give then receive. There is a story in the Bible about a servant of God who went to a city suffering from famine. There was a poor mother who had children; all she had was a little bit of oil. The servant of God was hungry so he used the oil the mother was keeping for her children. The Bible says he blessed her and told her to get some containers, and when the servant of God prayed all the containers became filled with oil. This woman practised what the Bible says about loving your neighbour as your own soul.

You can give to your brothers and sisters. When we were in the refugee camp we had a small share given to us from the United Nations. Sometimes they gave to the church, but for people who had never suffered before would drink blood and urine to supplement their hunger. They killed animals and drank its blood. When they saw this they started giving to those suffering also. If you had ½ kilo of flour you had to share it with your brothers and sisters and starve for three or four days. God blessed us seriously and greatly. Nobody could understand why we had clothes, food etc more than the United Nations offered and people would envy us thinking we were doing business, but it was the hand of God upon us, so the gift of giving has great value. We had a river that would run once a year and after four days it became like a desert, but in this river was fish. We would keep bags of fish in our houses exactly how Jesus fed the five thousand. This river had no connection with the ocean or lake but filled only when it rained. We didn’t understand if the fish came with the rain or not, but we praised God because it was a miracle. If you give to others and pray for them seriously God gives you great things.