Daily Devotional: February 17th, 2020

Coming to The Wedding

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’ “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business.The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them.The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Matthew 22:1-14

We often tend to focus on other parables from Jesus, but this one carries an important lesson. God has invited us to His Son’s wedding, we accepted his invitation, but when He finally calls on us to come, we decide that we have more important things to do like work, rather than coming to the wedding. Or maybe we’re like the one who attended, but wasn’t in wedding clothes, have we been acting like we’ve wanted to go to the wedding, but never actually prepared to do so?

We all fall short, but we fail to realize that because of Jesus we are able to be forgiven when we do so, but only if we truly aim to prepare and change. We all continually find ourselves consciously and subconsciously prioritizing other things over the call of God that we have already accepted. The question is though, what are you going to do about it?

Reflection

Think about the ways that you can prioritize God in your life over other things. Pray over those pieces that you find yourself struggling to get past. Take five minutes each morning to center yourself on God this week see if you can make him a bigger priority by doing this.