Luke 14

I love how Jesus says things that capture the essence of the human spirit. As such, He is able to speak directly to us even across the barriers of time. We tend to become familiar with our groups of friends and almost clique-ish in many cases such that we forget the work of the Lord. In fact, we often even go so far as to fall back on the old excuse that we should fellowship with believers to eliminate temptation. The only problem is that that's not what Christ asked for.

Christ asked each of us to be sure to not invite our friends, family, or siblings to our dinners or luncheons. Now, He is not talking about a literal lunch or dinner, though. He is talking about the opportunity to feast on the Word. And He's not talking about our literal family and friends. He's talking about our fellow believers. He's sayin that we don't need to invite Christians to a party that's all about becoming a Christian.

Instead we should be inviting those that don't know Christ. We should be inviting those that do not know Christ, and therefore, cannot walk or feed themselves alone to our dinner parties and feeding them the Word of God. How many times, though, do we hide behind an illusion that we are trying to escape temptation by not associating ourselves with those that are in most need of seeing God's grace? And what does that communicate to them about God? The church? Christians in general?