Don’t walk away from the Lord. This sounds like wise advice from a godly parent. Nothing is sadder in a person’s life than walking away from the Lord. That’s because there are eternal consequences to refusing the invitation of Jesus.
The good news is this does not have to be you! If you don’t know the Lord as your Savior, He is calling out to you right now to place your faith in Jesus. Romans 10:13 For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. [1] The Lord loves us so much He never stops calling us to faith, even if we have turned away from Him in the past.
A friend’s grandmother was almost one hundred years old before she surrendered her life to Jesus. Only God’s grace extended her life to allow her to change her eternal destiny.
Jesus Gives People Multiple Opportunities to Come to Him
In the parable of the great feast, Jesus told a parable during Holy Week to teach the people. Matthew 22:1b Jesus said, 2 “The Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a king who prepared a great wedding feast for his son. 3 When the banquet was ready, he sent his servants to notify those who were invited. But they all refused to come! [2]
Jesus’ message to the people was that in God’s grace, He extends His invitation for people to be involved in His Kingdom. Accepting the invitation would bring great joy, but to those who rejected it, it would lead to punishment. To illustrate God’s grace, the king gave the recipients two invitations. During the second invitation, the invited guests refused to come. By refusing to go to the banquet, they walked away from the most incredible invitation of their life.
The Grace of God
Using the Parable of the Banquet, Jesus presented an opportunity to come to Him. To go to the banquet was an illustration of coming to faith in Jesus. To some, the words of Jesus fell on good ground, and they came to faith, while other seeds of the Lord will fall on hard ground.
In just a few days after teaching this parable, Jesus gave His life to pay for the sins of humanity. As He spoke to the people, His heart desired that everyone listening to Him come to salvation. That is God’s same desire for everyone today.
A tender heart toward God creates rich soil for our relationship with Him to grow and come to him. Not only can we come to the Lord and place our faith in Him, but we continue to grow in faith throughout our lives. One day, all believers in Jesus will hear these words: Matthew 25:34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world.”[3] What an opportunity the Lord has for us. Don’t forsake His invitation!
Don’t walk away from the Lord. To learn more, listen here:
https://podpoint.com/light-of-christ-church-podcast/parable-of-the-banquet
[1-3] Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation. Tyndale House Publishers.