DAILY DEVOTIONAL – May 12, 2020
“No Excuses“
Prayer: Almighty God, you made no excuse for our sin, or the death that our sin has brought upon us. Instead, you paid for our sin and died our death by sending Your Son Jesus to the cross. Thank you Lord, and by Your grace, help us to make no excuses for not following you with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Scripture: Luke 14:16-24
“A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ 20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”
Devotional – “No Excuses”
There are a lot of reasons people give for not believing in God. In today’s society that increasingly prides itself on being tolerant, I here more and more people say that they can’t believe in a God that would send people to hell. I always chuckle a little bit when I hear this because, like most excuses, it is a self-defeating argument. To say that you won’t tolerate a God who is intolerant of sin and evil, only makes you guilty of the same intolerance.
The truth is, however, that God is beyond tolerant. He is gracious and forgiving, not because God makes excuses for us or because He accepts our excuses, but because instead of bringing His holy wrath and terror against sin down upon us, He exhausted it all upon His One and only innocent Son, Jesus Christ. God is absolutely intolerant of sin. That is why He is holy and perfectly righteous. God is also love, and mercy and compassion. This is what Jesus is clearly teaching in His parable of the Great Banquet in Luke 14.
The man in this parable invited many to this grand banquet, but no one rsvp’d. They only sent their excuses. The host of the banquet didn’t charge any money and he didn’t put forth any requirements other than to receive his free invitation. Yet, whether it be the chores and responsibilities of everyday life (the field), the preoccupation with our wealth and the things we want to acquire in this life (the oxen) or the priority of everyone else (the family), those that were invited to the banquet refused to accept the invitation. Did the host throw them out? No. Did the host trick them? No. The host prepared a feast at his own expense and offered it freely. The only reason the many would not be permitted into the banquet is because they rejected the host’s invitation. So the host went into all the rest of the city to find those that would enjoy the gift he had prepared.
As John 3:16 says, for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son Jesus to pay for the sins of the world. God didn’t require anything of us before He did this. He did it out of love and compassion and the desire to save us. Bad people don’t go to hell. Bad people are forgiven and bad people celebrate the joy of salvation everyday by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. I am one of them! Those who go to hell are those who reject the invitation of God given freely in the blood of Christ. Hell is nothing other than the absolute absence of God, and the presence of unimaginable suffering that comes with God removing His presence altogether. Those who go to hell are those who have refused the gift of the presence of God given in Jesus.
A man went next door to borrow his neighbor’s lawnmower. The neighbor explained that he could not let him use the mower because all the flights had been canceled from New York to Los Angeles.
Confused, the borrower asked, “what do canceled flights from New York to Los Angeles have to do with borrowing your lawnmower?
The neighbor answered, “It doesn’t have anything to do with it, but if I don’t want to let you use my lawnmower, one excuse is as good as another.”
There is no good excuse for rejecting God’s love. Even as those who believe in Jesus and have received God’s gift of salvation, there is no good excuse for despising the gift we have been given by neglecting our relationship with God. As George Washington said, “No excuse is better than a bad one.” It is better to confess to God that we have no excuses for our sin, because God has promised in 1 John 1:9, “If we are faithful to confess, He is faithful to forgive.” It is only in the confidence and security of God’s free and perfect love for us in Jesus that we can find the strength to stop making excuses, submit our lives to God and experience the joy He has promised to fill our hearts with.
Thanks for joining me for another daily devotional in God’s Word, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
