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Invitation, Week 4, Day 24

by David Joynt on October 29, 2019

Invitation, Week 4, Day 24

MATTHEW 7: 7-8 | Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

Invitations can, of course, be manipulative. Engage in a free trial, that lends to a lifetime contract. Come and enjoy free food at the casino, so you’ll spend lots at the gaming table. Come to dinner, so you can become a useful contact. But sincere invitations affirm and honor the one invited. An invitation says, “You are worth including! I want you to share in my joy! I hope you’ll connect with my friends. I want to show you the heart of my passion, the center of my values, the light of my life.” It’s the people we value that we invite to share our best experiences and our dearest relationships.

Count how many manipulative invitations you get today?

Count the sincere ones.

Jesus invites us to ask, seek, and knock. Are you doing any of these?

 

Tags: seek, ask, knock, manipulate

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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