Luke 14:34-35
Find a place and time free of distractions for the next 7-10 minutes. Take a moment to settle into your surroundings and then begin to recognize your breath. As you breathe in, call on the name of Jesus and become aware of his presence with you. As you breathe out, open your mind and heart to receive whatever Jesus has for you today.
Read Luke 14:34-35 slowly and thoughtfully.
Table salt is a combination of two elements that when joined together enhance certain pleasant flavors and make other unpleasant flavors less detectable. The essence and purpose of table salt is to make food taste better. And If the elements in table salt become unstable, or if one of the elements is missing altogether, the substance left behind is not salt anymore.
Prayerfully think back over the lessons Jesus taught in Luke Chapter 14 and see if any threads emerge that tie them together for you:
The real purpose and intention of God’s law regarding Sabbath rest (the healing of the man at the Sabbath dinner with the Pharisees)
The perils of attempting to elevate one’s status or importance (the Pharisees vying for positions of honor at the dinner table)
The emptiness of transactional relationships and the blessing and ultimate reward of giving with no strings attached (Jesus’ words to the dinner host about the guest list)
The tragedy of rejecting God’s invitation to a banquet in the Kingdom, and the open invitation to anyone who hears and responds to God’s invitation
The “cost” of being Jesus’ disciple
Read Luke 14:34-35 again.
Our very essence as people is that we were created in God’s image so that we could reflect the characteristics of God. If we act in ways that do not reflect God, we cease to become who we were meant to be. And the sad news is that we have all lost our purpose and essence - our saltiness - through our rebellion against God’s perfect rule and way.
Apart from Jesus we cannot rediscover our essence and purpose, but anyone “with ears to hear” is invited to return to God through the door opened wide by the sacrifice of Jesus. There is a cost to following him through the door – it involves surrendering every attachment, every other source of comfort, and even our very lives. But when we yield all of these temporal things to Jesus, we find ourselves seated at the table in God’s Kingdom knowing who we are and knowing to whom we belong.
For the final moments of this time of reflection, meditate on these words of Jesus from Luke 9:23-24:
“If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.”
What is Jesus’ invitation to you today?
Will you accept?
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