<\/p>\n
The Christmas story is shaped, in part, by a government decision: a census. People in Palestine likely griped about Caesar\u2019s decree\u2014and, according to tradition, a Jewish citizen was expected to register in their own ancestral town. That made things inconvenient for Joseph and Mary, who was near the end of her pregnancy. They had to travel about 90 miles (145 km) from Nazareth to Bethlehem, a weeklong journey by donkey.<\/p>\n
Caesar thought he was counting subjects, but God had a bigger plan. Joseph\u2019s ancestral town, Bethlehem, was also known as \u201cthe town of David,\u201d and prophecies stated that the Savior would descend from Israel\u2019s King David (Isaiah 9:6-7, 11:1-10) and be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). God used a government regulation to prepare the way for Jesus as the promised Messiah and King.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not uncommon today to hear criticisms about governments. Whether it\u2019s taxes, policies, trade regulations, or extra paperwork, people get frustrated with government leaders and their demands. But the Christmas story shows that God works even through government inconveniences to make his salvation known. Jesus came to bring the presence of God to sinful humanity, despite the inconvenient circumstances into which he came.<\/p>\n
In what ways can you see the Lord working today, despite situations that may be difficult or inconvenient for you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Christmas story is shaped, in part, by a government decision: a census. People in Palestine likely griped about Caesar\u2019s decree\u2014and, according to tradition, a Jewish citizen was expected to register in their own ancestral town. That made things inconvenient for Joseph and Mary, who was near the end of her pregnancy. They had to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[3306,813,86,269,181],"class_list":["post-12251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-devotionals","tag-census","tag-christmas","tag-daily","tag-devotional","tag-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}