"Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled." (Luke 14.16-23). Next week our Gospel Meeting begins. Throughout his time on Earth, Christ sent his disciples to teach others. In the "great commission" Christ made it clear that the apostles were to spread that word, as far as they were able to. In the parable above, Christ notes that there are those who would not come to this great supper because they had too many excuses. They apparently really did not wish to be at this great supper and so focused on anything at hand that would provide them an "out". In our day and time it sometimes is not those who are invited making the excuses. Many times it is the one who should be doing the inviting. There are always things to be done, places to go to, people to see and there is not enough time for other things.
One of the ways that we confess Christ (Rom 10.9-10) is by teaching the Gospel. One way that we can open the door to teaching is to invite others to our services. During the year we schedule Gospel Meetings to do just that. This is the time to reach out to those that we may not have the opportunity to spend a lot of time with but who we can at least give an invitation to. This may be the first step toward obedience for some. Who can we invite? We can start with those who are unfaithful. A Gospel Meeting can serve as a reminder that they are needed in our efforts and while unfaithful they are as lost as those in the world. We can invite our family. Sometimes we may not be able to sit down and talk with our family about the Bible. It is literally too close to home. We can invite them to hear someone else talk about the Bible and avoid any negative family dynamic that may interfere with what we are trying to do. We can invite those that we work with each day. We spend as much time with coworkers as we do with family and usually don't have any problem talking about anything else so it should not be too hard to give them an invitation to the meeting. We can invite our neighbors and those who live near us. We do not have to know them to invite them, that is what this is for, so that they may have the opportunity to know God. We can drop off invitations everywhere that we go. If someone rejects it, at least we have exerted the effort. There are many ways that we can get the word out and these are just a few of them. We can use e-mail as well for those who have that to contact our friends etc. If we use our resources and invite others we will have a better week knowing that we have done what we could do. Even if no one responds!
TLC