Love Does--Experience A Life Of Love In ActionSample

Come to the Party

I don’t think God is the kind of guy who forces Himself on anybody. If people don’t want to come to the banquet, He’s not bitter or anything. He loves them all the same, but He’s not going to force them. Instead, He just keeps looking. He keeps saying there’s more room to those who really want to be invited to where He is. He’s like any of us in that way. I think God pays attention to our hearts and enjoys when people want to get close to Him. He knows our sadness and the brokenness we want to hide from Him, and He sends people to look for us.

When we accept Jesus’ invitation to show up to life, we get to do life with Him, and He’s way more powerful and important than the president. Or Nicolas Cage.

A couple of other things happen when we accept Jesus’ invitation to participate with Him in life. Obstacles that seem insurmountable aren’t. Impediments that we believe disqualify us don’t. When we show up to participate with Jesus in the big life, we’re participating with the very being who made life in the first place. He gently asks us how we are and invites us to get better together with Him.

Accepting the invitation to show up in life is about moving from the bleachers to the field. It’s moving from developing opinions to developing options. It’s about having things matter to us enough that we stop just thinking about those things and actually do something about them.

When we accept life’s invitation, it’s contagious too. Other people will watch us and start seeing life as something more amazing, more whimsical than before.

Jesus wants us to come. He’s sending His servants out to tell the people standing at the fences and in the libraries that they’re invited to the party. He’s sending you an invitation too, in the sunrise, in the sound of a bird, or in the smell of coffee drifting lazily from the kitchen. The one who has invited you is way more powerful than any of the impediments we think we’re facing, and He has just one message for us. He leans forward and whispers quietly to each of us, “There’s more room.”