The Easy Way Out

Good morning to all of you good people! My hope and prayer is that the beginning of this new week has been uneventful and full of God’s blessings.

Today’s passage is found in Luke 14:7-14 where Jesus was eating at the house of a prominent Pharisee. One can only imagine that some of the “cream of the crop” of the religious leaders were present. During this visit, Jesus shared a parable that exposed our human tendency to look for those places (or seats) of “honor” at weddings and banquets; and Jesus gave his reasons why this should not be so. A key verse in this parable is verse 11, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” No matter how you slice it, this takes work. Humility? Humble myself? Who, me?

In a day and age when popular culture is mostly (if not all) about self-oriented instant gratification, bigger is better, materialistic power, etc, Jesus’ call could not be more challenging. Look around you (if you are at work, for example), who has the place of “honor”? Are you in a place of “honor”? Does it feel “exalting”? Is it easy to be humble when we are in a place of “honor”? James echoed Jesus when he wrote, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (James 4:10).

Our humility begins “before the Lord.” When we see God’s grace to us in light of who we are (and aren’t), we’re humbled. The fruit of that humility is of course a humble attitude that leads us to seek to walk in God’s ways in all we do, particularly in our approach to those who are not in places of honor. In fact, as he continued his parable Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (Luke 7:12-14).

The essence of what Jesus was saying here is “Don’t take the easy way out.” In today’s world, there are short cuts for everything from weight loss to learning another language to getting out of debt. One devotional writer I read this morning said, “The task of [those] who work for the Kingdom of God is to work for the Kingdom of God.”[1]

To be a disciple of Jesus Christ, to seek to be humble before the Lord, to live out this call is nothing easy. It takes work. It is true that salvation is a gift, it is not earned. But we must work at being true to that gift.

Are you tempted to take the “easy way out” in your walk with Christ? Is God’s Word the source of your strength, wisdom, power, and direction? Do you seek to be a Christ-like servant to those who are not in places of “honor”?

Prayer: Lord, thank you for looking at me when I was in a place of no “honor”. Thank you for your grace that saw me through. Enable me this day to be true to you as I seek to live humbly before you and as I strive to work for your Kingdom. In your Son’s name I pray. Amen.

By grace alone,
Pastor David

[1] From “The Inward Journey” by Howard Thurman