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.

The Little Town of Bethlehem (part II)

By Odon Bulamba

Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem and His birth was miraculous because the Spirit went into Mary and Mary conceived. The Bible says Mary was a virgin and as you know a virgin cannot become pregnant, but because of God’s power this was possible. The Bible says we are the church of the living God; we are married to Jesus Christ as His wife. Jesus Christ also needs virgins, not women who have two or three husbands but women who are wise (he needs both men and women in Christ to belong to Him 100% and not to belong to this world). The Bible talks about ten virgins that went to meet their lord. There were 5 wise virgins and 5 foolish; we must know how to be the wise virgins. The Bible says in order to be wise we must keep our oil.

What does spiritual oil mean? It means the anointing of the Holy Spirit and also the fear of the Lord; this will make us wise. While Jesus was in Mary’s stomach, Mary met up with Elizabeth who had John the Baptist in her womb. The Bible says they shook hands and something happened, a power not from man but that of the Holy Spirit was hidden in their stomachs, and the two children communicated and this affected their wombs, and Elizabeth started to prophesise. How does something in us transform what we have on our body? When you meet other Christians do you feel that the power of God is in them? How many times does God’s power make you speak of His love?

The Bible says they departed and 6 months later Jesus was born. When Jesus was born angels came down, and as we know in Hebrews an angel is a messenger of God. First the angels visited shepherds, but why? Were they the only ones visited on the whole earth? Yes, they were the only ones ready to receive the Lord, other shepherds were there but would not wait for the coming of the Lord that is why the Bible says we must watch at all times because we don’t know the time or the day. How many Pastors today look after their sheep’s souls? How many husbands look after their wife’s soul? How many wives look after their husband’s souls? You will see that very few people look after other people. The Bible says that when the angels spoke with the shepherds they could see the glory of God, and surely after that they went to see the wise men.

As we know wise men are people who study and people well educated, but through this God wanted to show them that He was God, but what struck me was that they were thirsty to go. Are you thirsty to know the word of God? Are you thirsty to correct the mistakes you have done? Most people say I haven’t been taught this, what I know is that. For example this is strange for me, I cannot lose my faith because of this, but the Bible says the Spirit is here to lead us. Ask the Spirit of God to enlighten you because in the end times many will perish because they lack knowledge.


The Bible says the wise men received the message from the angels and were ready to go. There answer was yes, however this is opposite to Christians today. When God talks to us about something we doubt and don’t have the courage to move on. We first must seek what God tells us and not seek what people think. So the wise men got up and left. Before they left each one took a treasure that had great value. The wise men gave gold, frankincense and myrrh. The Bible says a star led them on their journey; they had someone to lead them as the Bible says that the Spirit will be there to lead us. We must accept that the Spirit of God will lead us wherever we go, we don’t have the power to say no to this Spirit, we have no right to do what we want because we are slaves to Christ and are His prisoners. So the star led them, can you imagine all the stars in the sky, only one of these stars led them. Did the star fall? Was it in front of them? Where was this star in order to lead them?

When the Holy Spirit leads us, in man’s eyes it is hard to understand because they don’t know how the Holy Spirit can lead. They will not know how to interpret it because it is beyond them. The Bible says the wise men went. When they came back from seeing Jesus one of them said lets go and see Herod. Maybe they were employed to observe the stars and watch for the Lord to come, and maybe if they told Herod he would give them gifts. I don’t know if it was for that reason, but the Bible says that they left the star that was leading them and went to Herod. And they spoke with Herod. How many times as Christians do we leave the way that leads us to the Lord Jesus Christ? We always leave the way that leads to heaven and turn ourselves to the kings of this world to receive material things.

When the wise men went to Herod they lost the star. Herod told the wise men to see the child and come back to him, but when they left the star wasn’t there to lead them anymore. Understand that when we leave God’s way to follow the world’s way the power of the Holy Spirit leaves us

SUMMARY

- We must give our lives 100% to God
- To be wise we need the anointing of the Holy Spirit and the fear of the Lord
- We must watch and be ready for the return of Jesus Christ
- We must look after the souls of those around us
- We must be thirsty to know the Word of God and correct our mistakes
- We must be led by the Holy Spirit

The Little Town Of Bethlehem (part I)

By Odon Bulamba (summary only)

Micah 5:1

“Now muster yourselves in troops, daughter of troops; they have laid siege against us; With a rod they will smite the judge of Israel on the cheek."

This is talking about the town of Bethlehem. Bethlehem was a little town that was neglected by everyone. Remember Rahab’s story when she left Jericho? The Bible says she married an Israelite and moved to this town. God prepared this town a long time ago, but people were waiting for a king to be born in Israel. They knew that Jerusalem was the capital; they knew Jerusalem bred kings but God did something different, He said, “The one who will come in my name will come from Bethlehem”.

What does Bethlehem mean? Bethlehem is three words combined, so one word with three words in it. Beth means house, le is an abbreviation for Elohim which means God, and hem means bread. Together it means the house of God’s bread.

Why did God choose it? When Boaz went to the town of Bethlehem with Rahab the Bible says they started growing wheat. Bethlehem produced a lot of bread and everyone would come from Jerusalem to buy.

Everybody needs bread and everybody knew that Bethlehem had good bread. The Bible says, “Jesus Christ Himself is the bread of life,” John 6:35

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst".

Jesus Himself said, “I am the bread of life.” Because He is the bread of life and from the house of God it was therefore necessary for Him to be born in Bethlehem. This is why Bethlehem was chosen.

It’s the little things that people neglect and don’t care about that God makes into great things. Where man does not care about little things, this is where God shows His power. There are big churches and big groups led by wonderful people in man’s eyes, but God can leave those groups and bless the little groups. What is essential for God is when two or three are gathered together in His name, He is among them. God doesn’t need a lot of people but He needs people with sincere hearts and people who can surrender everything to Him, both body and soul.

Rahab worked very hard and was very patient waiting for the harvest because she had to wait for four seasons before she could harvest. It is the same with us, we are in the house of God and we are also in the house with the bread of God. How do you produce bread? Do you produce wheat, or do you produce other ingredients? God needs wheat. If you read the Bible you’ll see God is the seed. The seed is what gives life to the plant.

Most people today say that Jesus was born in December and only remember the little town of Bethlehem at this time of year, but as Christians we must think about God’s bread everyday because He says, “whoever is hungry can come and eat,” unfortunately we wait until December. If you read the Bible carefully you’ll see that Jesus wasn’t born in December. According to the Hebrew calendar Jesus was born in April.

Scientist did something with the Roman calendar so that Jesus would be born in December. What they call Christmas is not a Biblical word and I don’t know where they got it from. I tried to look it up in the Bible but found nothing, I also tried to ask some of God’s servants but they don’t know where it is written in the Bible. If you know about Rome you’ll see that there were a lot of gods and each god had a day where you would worship it. I don’t want to say anything more but this is where we get our days of the week Monday, Tuesday etc, and that is where the date of 25 December came from. This was one day where they would worship a tiny god. When the Catholic Church promoted this idea, all the people agreed to follow it.

So we see people worship what they don’t know. Sometimes people give their body and thoughts to something that is not alive. As for us Christians we must remember Jesus’ birth every day, not only in December.

SUMMARY

- Bethlehem means the house of God's bread
- Jesus had to be born there because He is the bread of life
- God raises up those things that the world neglects
- God needs people whose hearts, souls and entire life is submitted to Him
- We need to remember Jesus every day of the year