WATCH TODAY’S EPISODE ON YOUTUBE.
CONSECRATE
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
HEAR
Luke 14:16–20 ESV
But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’”
CONSIDER
Are you too busy?
Year’s ago an old preacher spoke these wry words into my soul.
“If the devil can’t make you bad, he will make you busy.”
It rings true, doesn’t it? Isn’t that the story of today’s text?
The invited guests were too busy.
I’m imagining myself getting this gracious invitation to such a marvelous banquet. I might say something like, “I’m fifty-eight days in to an eighty-nine-day marathon (a.k.a. the Gospels series) and I’ve got to keep pressing on. Please excuse me.”
Many of the guests, now including me, are effectively turning in our regrets with the same excuse: “I’m too busy.”
But let’s dig a little deeper under this excuse. It’s not the field or the oxen or the new wife or the thirty-one remaining chapters of the Gospels that’s the problem, is it? There are fifty more of those pressing matters all around us all the time and they are all the same. The “I’m too busy” with a fill-in-the-blank reason all have one thing in common just under the surface. It’s the other way we say, “I’m too busy.” You know what it is.
“I don’t have time.”
And that’s actually the lie. We all have time. And we all have exactly the same amount of time. The issue is not too much to do and not enough time. The issue is priority. Here is what we are really saying to Jesus, the master and host of the great banquet: “You are not my priority.”
And the sooner we have the audacity to say that to his face is the sooner we can amend our way.
This is an awakening text. It’s a Wake-Up Call story.
We all have a lot of important and essential (and good) things to do—including managing our stuff (fields), tending to our work (oxen), and caring for our families (spouse). And the point of the story is not to say stuff, work, and family is not important. The point of the story is to say if you miss the banquet, none of that will have mattered. The point of the story is to declare and demonstrate an absolute, all-out, singular priority that pervades and persists through every iota of every aspect of our whole lives. It sounds like this: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33).
It’s another way of saying, “Jesus, I belong to you.”
It’s not choosing Jesus over your family. It’s bringing them to the great banquet with you. It’s not choosing Jesus over your work. It’s bringing your employees to the great banquet with you. Jesus is not ranked as one among many things. He is placed at the very center of all things. It’s not God first, family second, work third. It’s making Jesus priority in my family and Jesus priority in my work and Jesus priority in my wealth and Jesus priority in my health and my leisure and every other possible category in life.
Everybody is invited to the banquet. They just don’t know it yet. Go to the banquet. And take as many people as you can with you.
Here’s the twist in the story. While we may be the landowner or the employer or the spouse in this story, we are meant to play another character in the story—any guesses?
One more bit—this is why you are always in a hurry. You’ve lost the priority, and soon you will lose the plot. Slow down.
PRAY
Lord Jesus. Lord of the Great Banquet. Not only will I be there at the banquet, I am going to become one of your servants who delivers your invitations and who gives my time in the midst of my everyday life to making sure your house is full for the party. By your grace, we will make heaven crowded. And I’m going to slow down. I promise. It will be for your glory, for others’ gain, and for my good—and in your name, Jesus, amen.
JOURNAL
Are you too busy? Do you not have enough time? How do you relate to and receive the rebuke about your priority? (I’m struggling with it.) What does a reset look like and a recalibration of pace?
SING
Today, we will sing “O Jesus, I Have Promised” (hymn 592) from our Seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer’s Praise.
For the Awakening,
J. D. Walt
John David (J. D.) Walt Jr. is the Sower-in-Chief for Seedbed and the pastor of the Gillett Methodist Church in Gillett, Arkansas.
Subscribe to get this in your inbox daily, and please share this link with friends.
14 Responses
So I’ve noticed for the first time in my life that in Luke here he talks about picking up your cross, bearing your cross. This is before the crucifixion, and yet it is a common phrase, obviously because he doesn’t explain it. He uses bearing your cross as an explanation. So I did a deep dive. I would like to know what your deep dive turns up. What does picking up and bearing your cross mean to the people he’s speaking to?
I get your point. Since crucifixion was a thing. Maybe a reference to dying on a cross in general. The comparison is a hard think one way or another.
I Need Thee Every Hour!
God is Blessing Me Through the SDT Message! We are All blessed by your delivery, JD! I awake early with the Word of God to start a Brand New Day! The possibilities with God are Endless!
Amen & Amen!
Time? Yes, I have time. It’s the priority thing I mess up. Ouch. Thank you for the much needed words, JD!
Enough excuses! It’s time for direct ongoing connection with the living resurrected Jesus Christ! Now’s the time to firmly “abide in the vine.” (John 15:4-5)
To abide in Christ the Vine, we need to continuously breath in the air of God the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:1-4) We need to constantly allow the water of the Spirit to flow from our innermost being. (John 7:39-39) Stop thinking, saying, doing the things that quench the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19) and prevent Him from effectively working in and through you! “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Psalm 34:8) Directly connect with God and stay directly connected with Him day and night through the eternal presence of the risen Jesus Christ. (Colossians 1:27)
Sermon-based Christianity is like hearing a lecture about the air without breathing it. It’s like sitting through a speech about water without drinking it. Sermon-hearing isn’t enough to make you a consistent follower and disciple of Jesus. Daily walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5:25) and persistently do the Word of God. (James 1:22) Live every moment in direct connection with Jesus Christ.
You need divine
Intersection —
Direct connection
And pure affection
For the living God.
Mere information,
Head knowledge
Without heart connection,
Is not enough!
Pursue reflection,
Deep meditation,
And introspection.
Let Christ’s direction
And His correction
Take over your life.
Experience now
Christ’s resurrection.
Don’t just study it.
Let Christ’s presence be
Your never-ending
Divine injection
And God infection.
Taking up my cross…giving myself to Christ, making time for Him and His work, making it my work, giving up my will for us His. Taking up my cross is accepting His forgiveness for my sins. He went before me and has risen from the grave. I’m carrying the cross until I can no longer carry it or He comes again. I am become like Jesus through His Word and growing in God’s glory, seeking continuous sanctification not through my works, but through the blood of Jesus. I sacrifice my body for the Lord daily, I give up my will for His will. But you know, it is not always easy because I am still in this fleshly body. I still have to call on His name all day long. I guess I have said enough. God bless
I have plenty of time. I just don’t utilize what I have. This was a good reminder to let my light shine everyday, everywhere.
What if Jesus gives me the same amount of time I give him?
What a great question for all of us to consider!
Oswald Chambers: “Whenever our right becomes the guiding factor of our lives, it dulls our spiritual insight. The greatest enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but good choices which are not quite good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best.”
So if Jesus is my priority and I slip up and get too busy, I come back to Jesus and get too busy again will I lose my place at the final banquet? In and out, in and out?
Yes, we have the time. It’s how we use it…how we prioritize HIM in our lives…. I know I can do better by keeping my eyes fixed on Jesus every minute of every day. This message never gets old & is worth repeating, at least for me in this season. Thank you, JD.
There’s been a lot of talk of “time” lately. I’ve wondered at the lame man having four friends – FOUR! – who’d carry him to Jesus. What abundance! Imagine having so many people in your life who’d drop what they’re doing to help you. Or take the “good Samaritan.” JD listed out all the Samaritan did. Imagine giving that much time to someone else. And then the banquet… Yes, isn’t there always something else? I lament how thin, how very thin, community is. The “I don’t have time” response directly correlates to thin community.
Thank you I needed to hear those words from God. Thank you for your commitment .