10.26 Enjoy the banquet of life!

10.26.

Life with God is a banquet.  He wants us all to come and enjoy life with Him.  He keeps inviting.  Some who are prideful, arrogant and conceited reject the invitation of God’s son, Jesus.  They might be too committed to their own religion.  They might be too rich and powerful to submit to God.  Does God limit Himself to the people who are religious? No.

The invitation goes out to the street people, the tax collectors and prostitutes.  Some of them believe the good news that God loves them and has provided a way for their repentance and forgiveness.  They too come to the banquet of God’s mercy and its transforming power.

There are some who are too self-righteousness and arrogant to accept these.  These are dressed in their own self pride and they are not dressed in His righteousness alone.  These must be thrown out of the banquet because it is only for those who want to focus on Jesus righteousness.

God invites good people and bad people to the banquet.  The good people are not perfect in themselves, but only through grace are they saved.  The good people might be those who are not criminals.  They are those who never step on others on their way to the top.  They are those who do their work without criticizing the work of others.  The bad people are those who must crush others in order to do their work and climb to the top of the money and power ladder.  We want to work for bosses who are good people.  We want to run with good people.  But the reality is that good people and bad people must come to the banquet of God dressed not in self-righteousness, but God’s righteousness. 

Matthew 22.

22 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: ² “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. ³ He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

⁴ “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’
⁵ “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. ⁶ The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. ⁷ The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
⁸ “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. ⁹ So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ ¹⁰ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
¹¹ “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. ¹² He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.
¹³ “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
¹⁴ “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”