Placing the Good ahead of the Best

Reflections for this date are based on the following scripture passages:
Luke 13	Luke 14	Luke 15	Exodus 29	Exodus 30	Psalms 34	Proverbs 11

Luke 14 records one of Jesus' parables followed by His instructions about what it means to be His disciple. The parable depicts our invitation to salvation while the instructions that follow are about the call that follows salvation to be a disciple of Christ.

Those initially invited to the banquet, in Jesus' parable, represented the Jewish religious community who were self-righteous and thought they had no need of the salvation Jesus offered. The excuses they gave are obviously excuses, and petty ones at that. Though Jesus addressed this parable to his audience of Jewish religious people, our application should be more general, including all who reject Jesus' invitation to salvation. His parable here suggests that it is those who are aware of their neediness and who may be looked down on by the self-righteous who most readily accept Jesus' invitation. The self-righteous are not found only among those who are religious. Many who disavow God and any form of religion are self-righteous, claiming to have no need of a religious "crutch." But their need of Jesus' salvation is no less than that of anyone else. In light of the offer of salvation Jesus makes to us, any excuse to reject it is petty.

In the verses that follow the parable in Luke 14:16-24, Jesus gives three major areas of our lives, in verses 25-35, that are barriers to truly following Him as His disciples. In reading these verses our first inclination might be to think Jesus is belittling these areas of our lives and saying they are unimportant. Instead, He is simply pointing out what our first priority must be. When this priority is placed in its proper perspective, everything else takes on a healthy perspective.

What are the three major areas of our lives that we put up as barriers to being true followers of Christ? Our relationships, including family, our own desires for our lives, and our possessions. When we allow any of these, our relationships, our own desires, and our possessions to keep us from truly following Christ, we take an unhealthy perspective with them while also missing out on the best Christ has to offer us. As a result, neither do we bring our best to our relationships, or any other parts of our lives. We have exchanged what might be good for what is the best.

A significant reason our choice between fully following Christ and giving first place to these other areas of our lives can be so difficult is that what we are asked to relegate to second place in our lives are not necesarily bad things. In many cases they are good things. But unless we put Christ first in our lives, we have not placed the best thing in first place.