Weddings

Weddings are amazing - well, I feel they are. 

I know some are different. I remember ours; it was quite the day. Some are full of good thoughts and lots of great memories. Some are full of terrible mistakes and lots of heartaches.

There was one a while ago here where a whole bunch of guests were departing the wedding after the bride and groom had left. They had all had a great time, and they had organised a bus to take them all home.

Horribly, the bus went too fast entering a roundabout, smashed into the guardrail, and ended up tipping completely over, killing many of the wedding guests and injuring many more. How do we come to terms with something like that?

Obviously, the newly married couple has to contend with that. So many of the guests were killed, and many more were hurt really badly. A horrible time indeed.

Matthew 22:1-14, you will get a great account of the parable that Jesus told about a great wedding banquet. He told a story about what the kingdom of heaven is like.

He said, "The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to all of those whom he'd invited to the wedding banquet and told them to come. But they refused.

So, the king sent some more servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the banquet.'

But they paid no attention and went off - one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.' So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, 'How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?' The man was speechless.

The king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,' For many are invited but few are chosen." 

What Jesus was saying here was pretty straightforward. He used this story as a reminder that we can spend so much time on ourselves and so little time with God. Are we really too busy for God sometimes? God will give us huge blessings if we come to him. But then we can be so occupied with ourselves that we have no time for him at all?

Do we ever spend time with God? Or are we like those in the story that Jesus told? Making excuses rather than spending time alone with him.

It's time to examine ourselves and really come to terms with how we relate to God and, actually, how much time, if any at all, that we spend with Him.

We can be totally absorbed in our own lives, and like what Jesus said in this parable, if we are so consumed with our own little world and completely cut Jesus off in everything we do, then we haven't got the slightest chance of getting to Heaven when we finally reach the end. Which can be quicker than we ever thought.

BUT what Jesus is trying to get through to us is that he wants to be the epitome of our thoughts and in our lives. He needs to be our main focus throughout life, and we need to give him prominence in everything we do and everywhere we go.

A relationship with our friends and family can often be a real effort. BUT can coming to Christ be an effort for you? All you really need to do is ask him into your life to lead you and make him THE number one in your life in all situations in which you find yourself.

When we come to God and ask him into our lives, he comes in and changes us, and we know that all we have to do is accept his great love for us and ask Him to lead our lives regardless of what may be happening in each of our situations. That alone is totally amazing. 

I know personally that life can throw all sorts of curveballs at us, and we really can't dodge them at all. But what Jesus is saying here is that we should be prepared to give God everything. We can't just pretend that he is leading us if we haven't asked him to, and also, how serious are you when you have asked him to lead you?

We need to communicate with him constantly, asking him to lead us in every situation in which we find ourselves.

I know, in my personal situation, I feel I need to come to Christ constantly, and really every day, before you start your day, take a time to surrender your life to him, and to lead you throughout the day. Check out Romans 12:1: "Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, this is your true and proper worship."

Another truly great thing is prayer - it doesn't have to be hour-long prayers shut away in a cupboard somewhere, just short sentences to God regularly is amazing and will keep you ever close to him.

God bless you and hope to see you soon.