Luke 14:16-20
"Jesus 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 brought 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 now have a wife, so I can't come."
As I read this story it made me think of how many times I should have done something but I made an excuse because it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do. This is written to the people of Israel that were waiting for the Messiah but they were confident with their own knowledge of what that would look like. Jesus coming, teaching and being the living word of God didn't make them get off their desires.
As we learn to know what the bible says it won't change us to action unless we apply it to our lives. As we grow, we develop and as we develop we start to be ready and excited to go to the feast. We get excited to live out our lives, not thinking of what we like, but what we have seen the word say. This is a maturity we should all continue to strive for because life will happen and each day will have it's own challenges. If we don't let the word of God transform our thinking we will miss out on the feasts that are happening all the time. This also made me think; do I want to just go to the feast or do I want to be serving at the feast and shining the light so people can't say that I say one thing but do another. We should have an excitement in our hearts that makes us want to do all we can for the Kingdom.
We know Jesus Christ and what He did for us by coming, dying, and resurrecting so why do we loose that focus when things don't go the way we want? The thing that makes us mature is knowing and doing God's will and that can only be done when we study it and pray. We can't get caught waiting for something we already have but just don't realize we have it because we are still waiting for it to fit into our thinking. Change takes believing something needs to be changed and then doing something about it. Excuses happen when we say we want change yet we don't work at all to make it happen. In this story we see people that God set up as the guest yet they got comfortable with life and thinking about what a Messiah would be like, but they really didn't want to do the things that would show that the Messiah was right there.
Our lives are set for the feast, are we excited about what the Holy Spirit is doing in us or do we listen only when it sounds good to us? We can't think of how we feel we need to pick up our cross daily and follow Jesus. We have no excuse not to open His word and let it change our lives. Amen
"Jesus 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 brought 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 now have a wife, so I can't come."
As I read this story it made me think of how many times I should have done something but I made an excuse because it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do. This is written to the people of Israel that were waiting for the Messiah but they were confident with their own knowledge of what that would look like. Jesus coming, teaching and being the living word of God didn't make them get off their desires.
As we learn to know what the bible says it won't change us to action unless we apply it to our lives. As we grow, we develop and as we develop we start to be ready and excited to go to the feast. We get excited to live out our lives, not thinking of what we like, but what we have seen the word say. This is a maturity we should all continue to strive for because life will happen and each day will have it's own challenges. If we don't let the word of God transform our thinking we will miss out on the feasts that are happening all the time. This also made me think; do I want to just go to the feast or do I want to be serving at the feast and shining the light so people can't say that I say one thing but do another. We should have an excitement in our hearts that makes us want to do all we can for the Kingdom.
We know Jesus Christ and what He did for us by coming, dying, and resurrecting so why do we loose that focus when things don't go the way we want? The thing that makes us mature is knowing and doing God's will and that can only be done when we study it and pray. We can't get caught waiting for something we already have but just don't realize we have it because we are still waiting for it to fit into our thinking. Change takes believing something needs to be changed and then doing something about it. Excuses happen when we say we want change yet we don't work at all to make it happen. In this story we see people that God set up as the guest yet they got comfortable with life and thinking about what a Messiah would be like, but they really didn't want to do the things that would show that the Messiah was right there.
Our lives are set for the feast, are we excited about what the Holy Spirit is doing in us or do we listen only when it sounds good to us? We can't think of how we feel we need to pick up our cross daily and follow Jesus. We have no excuse not to open His word and let it change our lives. Amen
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