Drawing the Lines with our priorities and other things...

Overview of "The Great Banquet" Luke 14:15-23

Jesus tells this parable and begins by saying, "Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God."

Summary of this parable:

A man prepared a great banquet and invited many guests. He told his servant to go and tell his guests that everything was ready. All of the guests had excuses about their time...one said he had just bought a field and he needed to go and see it, another said, he had just bought some oxen and needed to go and try them out, another said, he had just gotten married and could not come.

The man who prepared the banquet was angry and told his servant to go into the streets and invite the poor, crippled, blind and lame. The servant did this and there was still room, so they invited the people from the country lanes( which were probably cast offs in that time) The man preparing the banquet said, "I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet."

Ephesians 1:3-14

This passage is a great pair to the parable of the great banquet. It is basically saying that ,"in Christ" as Christians, we are blessed with every spiritual blessing. He chose 'us' ...we are the invited guests....

Discussion

• In retrospect to the parable of the great banquet, what are the things in your life that are your excuses when it comes to time with God? I can think of many times when I have too much to do to attend Wednesday night church or too busy of a day to open up my bible and study. Does this ever affect you? It is kind of like God keeps inviting us to give us his most lavishing blessings...but I find myself at times to bogged down with my agenda. What does this parable speak to you? Where do you draw your lines here? I think this is a constant and ongoing personal struggle for me.
• Lets look at the Ephesians passage with the Luke passage. If we represent the guests originally invited to the banquet....can we be, "UN-invited?" The passage in Luke did not say that the people that he, "UN-invited" were adulterers, murders, liars and and horrible people....he simply said, they had other things to do. Again, where do you draw your line here?
• Do you have any good rules of thumb that you and your family go by? When I was young, my parents did not allow anything to interfere with our Wednesday night church(Unless we were sick). Once I was asked to have a large role in school play in the 4th grade. I had to decline, because the performance was going to be on a Wednesday night....I think that was a little harsh, because God did not say we must always meet mid-week. Looking back, maybe there was a happy medium, like maybe we would have a devotional time when we got home after the play or maybe the night before...but it did send a message that "God's time" was important.