Just Enough

 "But He said to him, 'A certain man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many; and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is ready now.' But they all alike began to make excuses."

Something that amazed, grieved, and frustrated me through my years in ministry is that the majority of professing believers seem to be very content with "just enough Jesus." Just enough Jesus that He's available when we get into trouble. Just enough Jesus to grant us blessings, keep us safe, and provide for not only our needs, but our wants. Just enough Jesus to give us some warm "spiritual fuzzies" when we attend church services. Just enough Jesus to make us feel like we're really following Him, even though.....we're really not.

In so many ways, we're just like the invited guests in Jesus' parable about the rich man and the banquet he gave for his invited guests. He had prepared a feast, and all was ready for them to come and partake of it.....but they all came up with reasons why they couldn't. If they were people he wished to be present, they must have had importance to him. Yet he, and his feast, had little importance to them. They found reasons not to come. They were unaware of not only all he had prepared for them, they were unaware of how they dishonored him in their excuses. He had prepared a feast they were not hungering for. How like them we are.

In Christ, the Father has prepared a feast of life and blessing for those who believe upon Him. All is ready and laid out before us. He invites us to partake, to enter into His fullness. We, like the invited guests, do not partake of it because our hearts do not hunger for it. They don't hunger for Him. We're oblivious to all He has given us in Christ. Worse, we have little if any idea of how we dishonor Him in our apathy to it all. We're very familiar with the Scripture that tells us that He "gave His only begotten Son," but we don't have a real understanding of the cost to Him and of the infinite value of the gift He offers us in Christ. We're satisfied with sips and nibbles of the Bread and Living Water of His Life. We have just enough of those to keep us going and to give us what we think of as contentment. All the while we're starving for Jesus. Starving to death an inch at a time.

Where are we refusing His bounty in our lives today? Where do we stay away from Him? Where, in our worship, our service, our ministry, does the cheapness of what we give and receive dishonor Him? Where have we, are we, devaluing the One who is infinitely beyond any treasure the world has ever known? 

This day, He has prepared a banquet that offers an unlimited abundance of His life. He has made all things ready to partake of it. What do we do? Send in our excuses, or come to Him, run to Him, hungering and thirsting to partake?

Blessing,
Pastor O