Week 3: Discussion- The Great Banquet

I want to apologize for getting so far behind. Again, it is ironic that this week, where the discussion is about freeing up time for others and for God and I seem to have less time for either. But now, the refrigerator is repaired, the car is fixed, Robin (and our employees) is feeling better and perhaps we will have a better week. During the week, I was reminded of what Job said during the beginning of his trials, "Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?" (Job 2:10 NRSV)

Tony once again brought it to us regarding what we do with this precious gift God gave us: our time.

He begins with "The Parable of the Great Banquet. " If you go to this passage, you will see that it starts with Jesus eating supper on the Sabbath at the home of a prominent Pharisee. During the course of the meal and during the conversation, someone at the table remarked, "Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God." (verse 15).

From there, Jesus tells this story of folks who are too busy to attend this grand feast. After receiving excuse after excuse, the master of the house then sends his servants out to scour the countryside for the poor and otherwise disenfranchised. These people were invited- actually it sort of sounds like they were dragged- to the feast and the master at the end says, "I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet." (verse 24).

The morale of the story is do not be too busy to miss the invitation to God's party.

Are we, on a day-to-day basis, "giving our regards to God whenever we replace something we should do for Him with something we do for us?