Tag: excuses

Do You Want to Be Healed?

Today’s reading is Psalm 126. Here the psalmist writes of successes or fortunes after challenging times.

5 Those who sow in tears
shall reap with shouts of joy!
6 He who goes out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
bringing his sheaves with him.

Psalm 126:5-6

Have you had an opportunity to watch The Chosen series? If not, I highly recommend it. It is a multi-season series about Jesus available for download on your phone or tablet through the app store which you can project to your TV.  Although made for adults, our kids ages 8,5, and 3 love it as well. Season 2, Episode 4 came out a few weeks ago which was about John 5:1-17 where Jesus heals the man who had been a paralytic at the pool believed to heal the first one who could get into the water when it bubbled up for 38 years. This is my favorite story in the Bible for a couple reasons. First, probably because if I was born during that time I could be the paralytic because I would eventually be paralyzed due to spinal stenosis without modern medicine. Secondly, I believe these verses are packed with life lessons which I believe God is speaking through their interaction in these verses.

Jesus could obviously could have just healed the man, but what does he ask him first in John 5:6, “Do you WANT to be healed?” If you are going through challenges right now you are probably saying…”Chet..of course I do!” However, if we really go deeper..how many times do we find ourselves responding to our challenges like the paralytic in John 5:7, “Sir…I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I’m going down another steps down before me.” This is what my former business coach calls the trap of the viable excuse. We all have excuses which all have an element of truth in them. The problem with that is that when we give one excuse it can lead to another and another..all of which have an element of truth in them. However, will giving those excuses actually improve our situation in any way? We have to stop giving excuses and first truly want to be healed.

Next, Jesus says to the paralytic in John 5:8, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” The paralytic could have asked Jesus if Jesus was crazy and that he was paralyzed and had been there for 38 years. Get real…don’t you know my problem, Jesus? C’mon! But, what did the paralytic do? He had faith and believed that Jesus could and would heal him and he stood up and walked! God can heal us…but…we have do our part to have faith AND then take action. As my brother in Christ Brian McClure  says, “We have to be fully submitted AND committed to God’s calling for our life.” Another way to put it is faith AND action. If we look at Jesus’ miracles like this one, nearly all not only required faith, but a human element of us to do our part and take action in faith. God wants to see our faith and belief through action. Again…fully submitted to His plan for our life, whatever it is, AND committed to do our part as well..faith AND action.

Here are a few questions for you today..are you in a season of life where you are sowing in tears as the psalmist says and taking action? Keep sowing with faith. Or..do you need to do your part for God’s healing to take action in faith? What miracles can God do in your life if you are fully submitted AND committed where in God’s timing you can eventually “come home with shouts of joy, bringing sheaves..?”

And let us no grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

Galatians 6:9

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

Ephesians 3:20-21

Why We Should Quit Making Excuses

I decided to write today’s post on a parable in Luke 14. Today writing is all about excuses. We all use them but I want to remind you of the danger in them.

12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers[b] or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

15 When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant[c] to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you,[d] none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

Today in Luke 14, Jesus told a parable about a great banquet. The man in the parable wanted to throw this great feast! I can just imagine this in today’s world. It would be in a great big house with different foods all over for people to try and enjoy. There might be some light music, wine, and of course everyone would be dressed in their finest clothing. Ok let’s get back to this parable, this man paid for the food and prepared it all for his guests and then sent his servants out to gather the people he invited. Then he waited. His servants came back to him saying that all of his guests gave them excuses about why they couldn’t make it and NO ONE was coming. Can we just stop right there and start to think about this? How would you feel if you spent hundreds of dollars and multiple hours cooking this beautiful feast only to find out your guests were no longer coming. I’d be a little upset; ok I’d be pretty angry. Of course, this guy was too! What he did though was amazing. He invited people who were crippled, blind, and lame. These were people who would never be invited to such a dinner…yet they were. He did all this work, spent all this money, and didn’t want to see it go to waste. Jesus ends the parable with what the man says, “For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.”

 

Can you spot the bigger story behind this parable?

 

This is a story of the heavenly kingdom. The servants are the people of God who are reaching out the people of this world. We are reaching out to people but find that people don’t need God or aren’t ready to change. Time and time again we give excuses or say we aren’t ready to change but where does that leave us. Those people who think they have time, or don’t want to change yet….God says that none of them will ever taste his banquet. NONE of them will ever be in glory with him if they don’t decide now. Do you see who does come to the banquet? It’s the people who are weak, people who rely on God to be their strength. Most importantly, it’s the people who ACCEPTED the invitation.

 

I grew up in a small town where there were a lot of guys that grew up in a good home but strayed away from it because it was too “constricting” to be a Christian. After time, and a whole lot of excuses, most make it back to the faith but all assume that they have time to do that. We so easily forget the God is coming like a THEIF in the night. Remember that we don’t always have time, and God, our heavenly father, is always ready to welcome us home. All we have to do is stop making excuses.