Your Summer Reading List July 14, 2026 Devotional

8 When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host, 9 and the host who invited
both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place.
Luke 14:8-9

This parable is more than good social practice. Jesus is attempting to re-shape the minds of the Pharisees by confronting their pride. One’s position at the table was a social mark of the honor they held in their community. To sit ahead of your position was an attempt to gain more social favor with the host—a savvy but mostly embarrassing effort. Religious leaders of the day were constantly pushing themselves forward by demonstrating their purity and ability to keep the law—essentially making a claim that they deemed themselves more worthy in the eyes of God. Jesus turns this dangerous way of thinking on its head, for the self-exalted will be humbled.

“If I reckon that I deserve to be favored by God—not only do I declare that I don’t need grace, mercy, and love, but imply that those who don’t deserve it shouldn’t have it.” -NT Wright

Is pride getting in the way of your relationship with God? Others?

How would you define your worth before God?