Yeshua said the kingdom of heaven could be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his beloved son. Those who were invited made one excuse after another why they could not attend, so the disappointed king then instructed his servants to “go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame… and compel everyone you find to come in, so my house may be filled.” God loves people and implores them to personally join in the celebration of his love, to partake of the marriage feast of Lamb (Rev. 19:7). But note that this means that we are to bring all the lame, broken, and fearful parts of ourselves to the banqueting table of God’s love… The courage to “come to the table” only comes from a sense of being welcomed and accepted, that is, by trusting that you are truly made safe by God’s love….
Perhaps we are afraid of God’s love for us because we’ve experienced rejection or abandonment in our lives. We may silently wonder, “What if God lets me down and I get hurt again?” We prefer the “comfort” of our fears to the risk of letting go and trusting in God’s love for us, just as we are… This fear shows up in a lot of ways, for instance, by thinking we have to be “religious,” or by attempting to “heal ourselves” before we can accept God’s love. On the other hand, we might entertain a sense of false humility that considers our sin to be too much for God to bear, and thereby excuse ourselves from the celebration…. In every case the problem is the need to control. We want to define the terms of love before we will let go and trust. We are offended at the idea of divine grace because we want to esteem ourselves as worthy of God’s love based on who we are, rather than on who God is… The message of God’s love, however, is scandalous, precisely because it gives wholeheartedly to those who are undeserving and unworthy, to the tax collectors, the sinners, the crippled and blind and lame… Thank God for “Jesus, the friend of sinners…”
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