Luke 13:23-30
A bystander said, "Master, will only a few be saved?"
He said, "Whether few or many is none of your business. Put your mind on your life with God. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires your total attention. A lot of you are going to assume that you'll sit down to God's salvation banquet just because you've been hanging around the neighborhood all your lives. Well, one day you're going to be banging on the door, wanting to get in, but you'll find the door locked and the Master saying, 'Sorry, you're not on my guest list.'
"You'll protest, 'But we've known you all our lives!' only to be interrupted with his abrupt, 'Your kind of knowing can hardly be called knowing. You don't know the first thing about me.'
"That's when you'll find yourselves out in the cold, strangers to grace. You'll watch Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets march into God's kingdom. You'll watch outsiders stream in from east, west, north, and south and sit down at the table of God's kingdom. And all the time you'll be outside looking in—and wondering what happened. This is the Great Reversal: the last in line put at the head of the line, and the so-called first ending up last."
Scripture quotations from The Message. © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved.
Several months ago, my husband joined the James Taylor Fan Club online. He began getting notices via e-mail about James Taylor and his music… where he was performing, and more. When he learned that James Taylor would be performing a concert in late April at Verizon Arena in North Little Rock, he asked me if I would like to go with him. Would I?! As members of the fan club, we were given advanced opportunities to purchase tickets.
The opening day of ticket sales, I sat at the computer… credit card in hand… and waited for the 11:00 a.m. opening. I placed my order, and later we got confirmation… two tickets… on the floor… second row! We were so excited.
The concert day arrived, and we drove to North Little Rock and got in line to enter the arena. Inside, we found our seats… probably not more than twenty feet from where the musical legend and his band would soon perform. The cherry on top would be getting to walk down to the stage at intermission and actually get an autograph from the musical legend on the yoke of my denim jacket!
The arena was packed. More than 6300 people came to hear James Taylor and his band perform hits that most of us know by heart. But just as the concert began, I noticed an usher standing near the front of the floor section, and he had a couple of concert-goers standing with him. He was speaking to people sitting across from us in the second row… and soon they were leaving. See, they had taken vacant seats that did not belong to them. They were not the ticket holders for these seats – the people standing with the usher were. And these “party-crashers” were not welcome there. They had not taken the necessary steps to bring them to that particular spot, and they were turned away.
Do you see the correlation? It’s not enough just to come to God’s concert… you have to have the right ticket! Just because your family is… or was… “church people” doesn’t guarantee you a mansion in heaven. Just because you give to your church or do good works… don’t assume you will be dining at God’s table with the saints! Being a “good person” and claiming to know Jesus without really knowing Him and living for Him will get you nowhere. The only way to guarantee that you are a part of God’s Eternal Kingdom is to invite Jesus Christ to be the LORD of your life, call on His Holy Spirit to reside in your heart and guide your every step… then truly invite Him to live and breathe in and through you each day.
You have a choice. You can be a wannabe on the fringe… something of a hanger-on… the one who tries to sneak in the back door or take a seat that isn’t truly yours. Or you can have seats on the floor at God’s ongoing concert. Where do you plan to be sitting? Have you made the commitment and received the right ticket?
©2011 Debbie Robus
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