The Everyday Prayer

Re:Verse passage – Luke 14:12-24 (day seven) 

But they all alike began to make excuses… I have bought a piece of land… I have bought five yoke of oxen… I have married a wife. vs 18-20

The most shocking part of this parable is that the excuses are legit. No one would cancel their honeymoon for a friends party. Nor would people bat an eye if the CEO flew across the country to check on his new factory.  These are not bad things. In fact, they are good things, but good things can make for bad priorities.

How many of us do the same thing? How often do we get preoccupied with our everyday life occurrences and inadvertently neglect our spiritual health? We fill our schedule with good things justifying our actions because the things we did were not sinful. However, good things, if they are not Kingdom things, can quickly become an idol.  Our priority as followers of Christ should be “What we can do for the Kingdom?” not “Does the Kingdom fit into our schedule this week?”

Re:Verse passage – Luke 14:12-24 (day six) 

³⁴ “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me.”-Jesus, Luke 13:34

No matter how much they may have deserved it, Jesus’ words were not always colored with anger when confronting the self-righteousness of the pharisees. To be sure, there were moments when Jesus was angry with them, but more often than not he told his parables with compassion and longing for repentance. The one he tells while at the pharisee’s house is no exception.

Jesus had dinner with these pharisees and experts of the law, not to pass immediate judgement, but to help them truly see themselves; that they were fully invested in building their own kingdoms rather joining God in building his.

I imagine that required God-sized compassion.

Re:Verse passage – Luke 14:12-24 (day five) 

“And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled.”

Do you see and sense the picture of the parable?  The master is sending his servant/slave out to bring people to the dinner. The directive was to compel them to come. Not by force. After all, only one man  couldn’t realistically use force.  Not argue. A slave was not well regarded socially. Yet the master sends someone who has experienced the magnitude of the master’s wealth and generosity. I wonder how the slave spoke of the master. I wonder how the slave described the dinner.

We are sent in the same way…. to compel others to come and feast with the master. How will we describe what we have experienced?  What will we say about the Master? What will we say about His character and kindness?  His invitation for others should always be on our lips.

Re:Verse passage – Luke 14:12-24 (day four)

Remember the context of where Jesus was teaching…He had been invited to one of the Pharisee’s home, for the purpose of entrapping Him in some misstep.  The other guests were scrambling for the best seats at the table and Jesus had already rebuked them for their self-centeredness and greed.

Jesus lays out a scenario that would never have occurred with this group of people.  The guest’s pronouncement of the pending blessing in heaven (v.15) was the expectation that they…the Pharisees…would be the ones enjoying the honor at the great banquet in heaven.  The Pharisees saw their own righteousness and works as their pass into heaven.  It was a rejection of God’s grace for man who could never earn his way to heaven.

Where is your trust placed for forgiveness of sin?  Is it your personal righteousness or God’s grace?  “For by grace we have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”  (Ephesian 2:8-9)

Re:Verse passage – Luke 14:12-24 (day three)

“Go out into the highways and along the hedges…”

There’s a party happening somewhere to which you’re not invited, an A-list somewhere on which your name does not appear. Conversely, you’ve never planned an open house that’s completely open. There are always parameters. Whether it’s finances or social standing or affinity drawing the lines, everybody knows that invitations have limits. The story Jesus tells here upends that convention. It’s unimaginable, really, because nobody’s that rich. And if the host is that rich, the company kept by that host tends toward exclusivity in the extreme. But here we have in this parable a host who’s unfathomably wealthy and, by the end of the story, tearing down the gates to the mansion lest anyone be hindered from partaking in the feast. Will you still insist the host needs you as a bouncer?

Re:Verse passage – Luke 14:12-24 (day two) 

…and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. vs. 14

What’s in it for me? Don’t feel bad, that is the normal response to about any sort of social interaction. If we are going to put effort, time, and resources into something we want to know what we can expect in return. In this exchange with Jesus, we are indeed promised a reward, but not in a monetary sense. The more immediate concern, however, is what it does for those we are called to serve. We have something to offer that they do not have. It may be something very temporal such as food or clothing. Your blessing to them is a gift far greater than you could receive. It also gives you currency when sharing the greatest gift, Jesus. What you are offering, through Jesus, is life everlasting. Stop thinking only of yourself. What’s in it for them?

Re:Verse passage – Luke 13:1-9 (day seven) 

And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. vs 8 ESV

I appreciate the clarity in the ESV’s translation of the fertilizer. It wasn’t some blue “Miracle Grow” that you buy in a bottle from the box store down the street. This was manure: animal feces. If you wanted to create the best growing environment with the best fertilizer, you would have to get your hands dirty as well as deal with a putrid smell, which is likely why this vinedresser waited three years before going this route. Putting forth the effort to cultivate his fruit was inconvenience to him, and he almost waited until it was too late.

Fruit is the by-product of a fertile relationship with Jesus. As the relationship is nurtured, fruit will be produced. Many Christians find the cultivation of that relationship as an inconvenience. They would never admit that, but the reality is shown in the lack of fruit (love, joy, peace etc.). If we are not willing to get down on our hands and knees in prayer and dig into the Word on a regular basis, we can continue to expect a barren tree.

Re:Verse passage – Luke 13:1-9 (day six) 

² “Do you think those Galileans were worse sinners than all the other people from Galilee?” Jesus asked. “Is that why they suffered? ³ Not at all! And you will perish, too, unless you repent of your sins and turn to God.” Luke 13:2-3

It’s easy to justify ourselves when we compare ourselves to the sin and suffering of others, especially when we imagine their sin must be way worse than our own. It becomes such a slippery slope, with the conclusion that God blesses the  more righteous, and curses or judges the less righteous.

This notion has been alive and well from the beginning. It’s why the book of Job was written. Today, we call it the prosperity gospel.

Jesus corrects this kind of thinking quickly by answering the rhetorical  question with, “Not at all!” He goes on to say, “It could have just as easily been you.” Well, he didn’t say it just like that, but that is what he meant.

When we compare ourselves to the righteousness of God, rather than one another, his wrath makes complete sense. We are all deserving of his judgment. Then every waking moment is rightly perceived as a gift of God’s mercy, instead of something we believe we somehow earned.