Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Has anyone thought about the poor innkeeper in Bethlehem who said he had “no room” in his inn for Joseph and Mary and the Baby Jesus?
“I couldn’t help it! I didn’t know who Joseph and Mary were or who the expected Baby was!” he may wail. Ah yes, Innkeeper; but you could have given them your room! If you had done so, you would have gone down in history as the most blessed innkeeper ever.
The Innkeeper in fact is "us"; we never know from one day to the next what opportunity may suddenly be ours.
The Lord Jesus teaches us the significance of the most lowly opportunity that may confront us when we least expect something important. He says, “Inasmuch as you did it [anything good or bad] to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me” (Matt. 25:40).
The Lord is not trying to compile a list of all the bad things we have done or said in an effort to make a case against our entering His kingdom; He wants to amass a host of good things so that He can say to us individually and sincerely, in the presence of the universe, “Well done, good and faithful servant! … Enter into the joy of your Lord!” (vs. 21).
There is nothing that gives the Lord Jesus more pleasure than saying this to humble people who feel like they don’t deserve any honor in God’s kingdom.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: December 21, 2008.
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