Wonder Wednesday January 20,2021

Are you coming to the table with grace?

Hi friends it’s #wonderwednesday! It’s Inauguration Day in the United States so please pray for safety.

Imagine with me for a few minutes your dinner table. Like whoever you want is there. Jesus has prepared the meal and brings it in. However you notice something, there’s more people than you invited. You ask Jesus “who are these people? I didn’t invite them?” Jesus is so gracious with I’d his response, “I invited them. Everyone is welcome here.” “But Jesus, I didn’t they THEY should be here.” You say. “I love everyone so much I died for them.”

Well in this story, Jesus is the guest. He says welcome those who can’t pay you back to your table. Jesus tells this parable about a rich man who wanted to have people over for dinner. His friends made excuses on why they couldn’t come. This rich man was upset and told his servants to go and find the people on the street corners and those sick and injured and invite them. There was still more room so they found everyone they could and compelled them to come in.

“He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’””

‭‭Luke‬ ‭14:12-24‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Those we don’t expect to come in Jesus invited them in. Can we be like that too? Let’s be less judgmental and hypocritical and come to the table with the grace we so freely get to receive. Sit down and listen to the stories of others. Sit down today and feel is never ending grace for you.

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