The Feast

 "Jesus replied with this illustration: 'A man prepared a great feast and sent out many invitations. When all was ready, he sent his servant around to notify the guests that it was time for them to come. But they all began making excuses." Luke 14:16-18

Who would turn down an invitation to a feast? A feast is not just any kind of meal. It's a table set with the finest of food and drink. Yet in this parable told by Jesus, all those who'd been invited had done exactly that. A sumptuous feast was being prepared for them, but they all found reasons to avoid coming. It made no sense. It still makes no sense, particularly when the feast being offered is the riches of the Kingdom, and the One doing the inviting is the Father Himself.

I remember a specific happening in my own life, when I turned down His invitation. It was 1974, and I was walking through a very dark and painful time. I was in college, living in the small town that hosted that college. One day I was walking, wrestling with my pain, when I happened to pass by the small building where the "Jesus Freaks," gathered. They were a small but vibrant campus community, several of whom I'd met. I was impressed by their zest for life and for Christ. As I passed by, I paused, and saw that the door to their gathering was open. As I was looking in, one of them smiled and called out to me to come and join them. I remember being frozen to that spot for what was only a few seconds, but felt so much longer. Finally, I shook my head and continued on in my walk. I continued on in my pain, my darkness, my hopelessness. I continued on in what would be five more years of that darkness, until finally, another invitation was given, and this time I accepted. Ever since, I have been both grateful for His invitation, and at the same time, deeply regretful that I spent those long years in a spiritual wilderness by rejecting His previous one. I had so many excuses to do so the first time, but all of them were empty. They had cost me, and though He has given me so much, I have never lost sight of what could have been had I attended the "feast" He first invited me to on that long ago summer day.

What keeps you from His feast? Ruth Graham, the daughter of Billy Graham said that the church is filled with people who don't know God. How can this be? If that church is proclaiming His Word, His promises, and His offer of abundant life, then a feast is being laid before them regularly, and regularly, they are turning down His invitation to partake of it. Why do we prefer the junk food and soda pop of this world to the Bread and Water of His Life? Yet we do, and all our excuses for doing so sound right to us, but if they go on, those excuses will mock us throughout eternity.

The Bible is clear that all will come to stand before Him for judgement. One group, the largest will be composed of those who have rejected Him. That rejection will be judged, and the consequences of that rejection will be terrible, final, and eternal. I plead with you, if you are a part of that group right now, turn back from it. Receive His invitation to eternal life. A life that begins right now....The second group will be composed of those who did accept that initial invitation to His Life, but will then be judged as to just how much of that life they entered into, and what they did with the life they'd been given. I think one of the things we in this second group will experience is being shown all that He had prepared for us, but that we, for one reason, one excuse or another, had never fully entered into. All of the abundance that we could have lived in, but didn't, because we excused ourselves from doing so.

Whichever group you find yourself in, and in your heart, you know which it is, He extends the invitation anew. Come to Him, and to the spiritual feast of life He has prepared for you, for us, in Jesus Christ. All your reasons for not doing so fall before the one great reason that you should, that He gave Himself up for you, in love, that you might have life, and have it abundantly. Don't spend another day in darkness, or another day surviving on junk food. Come to His table. Partake of His bounty. Partake of Him. It is time for you to come, and feast!

Blessings,

Pastor O