Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – I’m invited to the life God intends and I am shaped for the life God intends from being at the party.
Matthew 22:8-9 TPT
[8] “Then the king said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, yet those who had been invited to attend didn’t deserve the honor. [9] Now I want you to go into the streets and alleyways and invite anyone and everyone you find to come and enjoy the wedding feast in honor of my son.’
Observation
I love this – “invite anyone and everyone.” This is God’s invitation. Those who think they deserve it because they are worthy of an invitation because of their goodness, or their tribe, or their whatever, they will not appreciate the invitation and have better things on. This is how self-righteousness works, it puts me at the centre of things, and you miss the invitation. But the great news is that everyone and anyone who will receive the invitation is welcome to come. Not based on them warranting or earning an invitation, but based on the party throwers’ generosity. It’s only those who refuse to come who do not come. It’s not about worthiness, it’s about accepting the invitation. This is how God throws his party, all invited.
Love is like this. It doesn’t make demands, it makes invitations. It doesn’t make requirements, it makes ways. It doesn’t look to the deserving, it looks to the ‘streets and alleyways.’ How often is the invitation refused by either those who don’t think they deserve it or those who are too busy believing they deserve it? Love invites, that’s what love does. Its posture is always invitation to all. It’s not discriminatory, it’s not respectful towards the demands of the deserving, and it’s welcoming to those who think they are disqualified.
Only those who attend the party rave about the one who throws the party. This is the way of God. He invites us into the pleasure of his presence, and from the joy, the beauty, the awe of the party, a transformed me reflects the party. Those who don’t attend have nothing to say. You don’t live second-hand in God’s ways. It’s a first-hand encounter that shapes him in me. I don’t try hard to imitate a life I think is demanded of me, I live for the party, then I live from the party. It’s the after-party rave that shapes and becomes my life, me!
Application
I hear the invitation and I will not miss the party. I will ensure that I reflect love by extending the invitation to the “streets and alleyways,” to all. I will never be too busy with my stuff to miss the party. I will live in the welcome of the party and with the music and the festivities shaping my life. Being loved makes me love, that’s the way love designed it.
Response
Thank you for the invitation. Thank you that it’s not a deserved invitation, but sent, given, to me in the alleyway. I love attending the party, I love raving about the party. I love the me that is shaped by the party. I will return to the festivities often to receive fresh moves and tastes and songs for my life. I love this life.
Meditation
Meditate – to go into the streets and alleyways and invite anyone and everyone.
Consider:
Do you enter into the fullness of life that God invites you to because you have earned it, or because you got an invitation?
How often do you party?
JOURNEY DEEPER