Get Real November 23 Devotional
November 23, 2024
MATTHEW 22:4-5
Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business.
These verses are poignant to first century ears. “Again he sent servants” and they issue a second summons. “Please come!” No eastern monarch would react to guests who refused his invitation with anything but fury and reprisals. No one rejects a king and gets away with it, for such attitude would undermine the social structure itself and humiliate the ruler. Yet now the king pleads, re-invites, describes the feast, and endures a second rejection. This parable becomes a mini-theology of the OT. God seeks his rebellious people, endearing their apostasy and seeking again and again to restore the relationship.
PRAYER
Gracious God, you are a rejected lover, a determined seeker even when we are wayward or unfaithful. We turn our backs on your will and ways, we forget to pray, and we live as if you were a stranger. Forgive us. Restore us. We ask in the name of Jesus who came to seek and save the lost. Amen.
