An invitation ….
It’s that time of the year when 1000 bright
glossy postcards have been delivered through the doors of the local streets inviting residents to our Summer Picnic on July 1st. As always a lot of hard work goes into the preparations and as the day approaches we wait in faith that the weather will be fine. Through those invitations and the bright banner on the railings of the gardens we hope for a good response from thoseliving nearby.
It is not easy to know precisely how to get people to respond to an invitation – marketing companies have spent vast sums of money trying to work that one out!
In the Bible, Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a king who prepares a wedding banquet for his son. He sends his servants out to invite the guests but those who receive them are not interested, preferring to do their own thing and even killing the servants who brought the invitation.
The king then sends his servants to the street corners to invite anyone they could find both good and bad and so the hall was soon filled with guests. Result! you might think – but that’s not the whole story, for when the king notices that one of the guests was not wearing wedding clothes, he had him bound and thrown out.
“For many are invited, but few are chosen” Mat 22:14
It’s not enough just to respond to an invitation although that is a necessary first step. We have to respond and ‘wear the appropriate clothes’, in other words completely change our behaviour through the repentance of our sins and seeking forgiveness through the Lord Jesus Christ. In the past many of us will remember dressing up in our ‘Sunday Best’ clothes ’ to go to church.
Some still do, although today, many people take a more informal approach to what to wear on a Sunday but let us never be inappropriate in our submission to Christ and his commands. Remember those two greatest commandments ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
mind’ .. and ‘ Love your neighbour as yourself ‘? (Matt 22:37-39)
If you have been helping with those deliveries or other duties connected with the picnic then a big thank you, for you have been sending ‘kingdom invitations’ to our neighbours- but to our neighbours- but let’s not stop there, we need to ‘wear the right clothes’ to take our place at the wedding banquet in the kingdom of heaven.
Stuart Beadle
July 2012
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