God Wants You to Join the Party! - Daily Hope with Rick Warren - January 26, 2016

God Wants You to Join the Party!
By Rick Warren

“Go out into the country lanes and out behind the hedges and urge anyone you find to come, so that the house will be full. For none of those I invited first will get even the smallest taste of what I had prepared for them.” (Luke 14:23b-24 TLB)

Jesus told a story to explain the party that God has invited you to: “A man prepared a great feast and sent out many invitations. When all was ready, he sent his servant around to notify the guests that it was time for them to arrive. But they all began making excuses. One said he had just bought a field and wanted to inspect it, and asked to be excused. Another said he had just bought five pair of oxen and wanted to try them out. Another had just been married and for that reason couldn’t come.

“The servant reported to his master what they had said. His master was angry and told him to go quickly into the streets and alleys of the city and to invite the beggars, crippled, lame, and blind. But even then, there was still room.

“‘Well, then,’ said his master, ‘go out into the country lanes and out behind the hedges and urge anyone you find to come, so that the house will be full. For none of those I invited first will get even the smallest taste of what I had prepared for them’” (Luke 14:16-24 TLB).

God has prepared a generous banquet for all of us. It’s a party in Heaven that’s going to go on for eternity! God planned this party because he’s gracious and because he is generous. And he wants a full house!

In the story, the servant is sent out to get all the guests. If you are a servant of God, your job is to bring in the guests.

Are you a servant of God? Are you a child of God? Are you in God’s family? Are you saved? Then this is your job description.

I want you to notice some phrases in this passage: “Notify the guests,” “Go quickly,” “Invite,” “Go into the country lanes,” and “Urge anyone you find to come.”

This is how God wants you to do your job: Go quickly into every part of the world, tell people about God’s invitation to salvation, invite them into the family of God, and do it with urgency.

If you’re in the family of God, that’s your job description for the rest of your life while you’re here on Earth. Go invite the guests. And go in faith!

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Talk It Over

• Take some time to write out what you would want to say when God gives you the opportunity share the Gospel.
• Where does the job description from Luke 14 fall in your priorities?
• In the story, think about the guests that refused the invitation because of specific reasons. How do those reasons translate to modern day and the excuses people use to reject God’s invitation to salvation?

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This devotional © 2016 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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