Father, over and over in my mind I keep thinking of Your sustaining hand upon my shoulder. I have asked for it and You have surely given it to me. Over three weeks ago, I set some goals and You, being the faithful Father that You are, have lifted me up to remain faithful myself. All praise to You!
Luke 14:15-24 (<<click here to read the passage)
Have you ever had lame excuses for not doing something you said you would do? Maybe it was an invite to a gathering of friends. You could have been sort of “meh” (as my son likes to say) to the offer initially and may have feigned interest in a feeble attempt to be polite. But as the date gets closer and closer you are wanting less and less to be apart of it. Eventually, you come up with some hollow excuse as to why you won’t be attending.
In this passage from Luke, in the middle of all that’s been going on, someone at the table said, “What a blessing it will be to attend a banquet [to eat bread] in the Kingdom of God!” v15
Wasn’t that a nice “religious” thing to say, amongst all of his little “religious” friends? And if you’ve not caught it before, Jesus really wasn’t into all the “religious” stuff. I was into the real deal – authentic living out of our faith in what God was doing in and through us. I don’t see Him smiling as He replied with this story:

“A man prepared a great feast and sent out many invitations. When the banquet was ready, he sent his servant to tell the guests, ‘Come, the banquet is ready.’ But they all began making excuses. One said, ‘I have just bought a field and must inspect it. Please excuse me.’ Another said, ‘I have just bought five pairs of oxen, and I want to try them out. Please excuse me.’ Another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’ vs.16-20

According to my Life Application Study Bible New Living Translation,

The custom was to send two invitations to a party: the first to announce the event and the second to tell the guests that everything was ready. The guests in Jesus’ story insulted the host by making excuses when he issued the second invitation. In Israel’s history, God’s first invitation came from Moses and the prophets; the second came from his Son. The religious leaders accepted the first invitation. They believed that God had called them to be his people, but they insulted God by refusing to accept his Son. Thus, the master in the story sent his servant into the streets to invite the needy to his banquet, so God sent his Son to a whole world of needy people to tell them that God’s Kingdom had arrived and was ready for them.

We can get pretty “religious”, as well. We have all been abundantly blessed by God in incalculable ways. But when we are invited to take part in God’s Kingdom, how often do we come up with lame, hollow excuses.
Jesus: I need you to be here for this person.
Me: Oh, I’m sorry, today’s just not good for me. I’ve just got so much on my plate…maybe I can catch up with them later
Jesus: Could you please help out this family in financial need?
Me: Uh, this is a really bad time. I’m needing to trade in my car. It’s really starting to nickel and dime me to death. I’m sure someone else will help.
Sometimes we hear and ignore what He has to say. Sometimes our time is just so consumed by the life we have made that we don’t hear Jesus at all.
Wouldn’t it be a shame to miss out on something so spectacular from God because we settled with something so plain and mundane? What we need is a spiritual ear cleaning and one of those heart transplants we spoke of a few days ago. Let’s not miss out!

Sept 8th, 2020, Tues, 7:15 pm