No Good Reason

Jesus tells a parable of a certain man that made a great feast and invited a bunch of people. The first group that He invited all came up with excuses on why they couldn't come - they just got a new piece of land, they just bought some new oxen, and so on. None of these were good reasons to refuse to come. The second round of invitations went out to the poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind. This group perhaps thought they had a good reason to not attend a fancy party. Maybe they thought they weren't the type of people that fit in at such parties. Maybe they questioned if it was a serious invitation or not. Surely someone so great and noble can't have meant to have invited them. If so great a Lord only knew how much of a mess their lives were, He wouldn't dare invite them. I think a lot of us find excuses like this when we feel the Lord call us to repent and embrace the gospel more fully. We may think that there are good reasons why we should be left outside the fold. But the Savior makes it very clear that there are no good reasons. He wants us there whether we are rich or poor, healthy or maimed, having a clear vision of our lives or totally lost and blind. If we refuse the invitation because we are too busy or too preoccupied with worldly things, then this is not a good enough reason. But if we refuse the invitation because we think we are not good or righteous or perfect enough, then this too is not a good enough reason. Christ wants us at His feast, to partake freely and often from His bounteous grace and there is no good reason to hold ourselves back from coming unto Him with full purpose of heart. If we feel that we are poor, He shall make us rich. If we feel that we are maim or halt, He will heal us. If we feel that we are blind, He well open our eyes to our own grand potential and to His limitless, unconditional, eternal love for us.