My heart would be your Bethlehem

My heart would be your Bethlehem
A shelter for your birth

My body be your dwelling place

A sacred temple on this earth

By holy intervention

An act of love divine

In union with mortality

Make incarnation mine

  One might think Jesus isn't picky about where He stays. On the night of his birth on this earth, He lay in a feed trough. While doing His earthly ministry, he said the Son of Man had no place to lay His head; which would seem to indicate that He had no house. And then upon His death, He was laid in a borrowed tomb.

  So it should come as no surprise that He would want to live in our hearts. Our hearts can indeed be His Bethlehem this Christmas, and all through the year. However, unlike the baby content to lie in a dirty feed trough; He is not content to dwell in an unclean heart. If we are to have Him live in our hearts this Christmas and all year long, He will insist on cleaning up our hearts.

  There is an old hymn that goes like this:

Search me, O God, and know my heart today,

Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray;

See if there be some wicked way in me;

Cleanse me from every sin, and set me free.

  What better time than Christmas to ask God to do that? What better time to have Him search our hearts and see if we need to have Him do some housecleaning so He doesn't feel out of place there?

 Living the Christian life is not a life where you sit back and relax. There are days, weeks, and even months where it is all uphill and you're in the valley more than on the mountain. Doubts creep in, trusting God seems impossible at times, wrong attitudes, and other things can sneak in and weaken us and make our personal "Bethlehem" not so clean and tidy.

  It happens to me. Amid all of the depression, worry, doubt, and all of the other stuff life and the devil throws my way; Jesus can get lost in the shuffle and my own personal Bethlehem stops being the place it should be.

 Life is speeding by too fast. May this Christmas be a time we sweep out the stable and ask Jesus to show us what needs changed, where we need to improve, and to help us be all that He wants us to be.

My Heart Would Be Your Bethlehem

My heart would be your Bethlehem

A shelter for your birth

My body be your dwelling place

A sacred temple on this earth

By holy intervention

An act of love divine

In union with mortality

Make incarnation mine

My heart, my will, my mind, my all

I consecrate to bring

The Holy Son of God to earth

Oh let the angels sing

My will would bow in wonderment

Struck silent by the awe

Of angels visitation

That wakes my slumbering heart at dawn

With some annunciation

My soul could magnify

Begin in me a holy seed

That I cannot deny