Cart is empty The table is set with the finest china you own. Candles have been lit and the centerpiece flowers you worked three hours on look fabulous. The seven course meal you planned has taken nearly three days of preparation. You look around the dining room one last time, straighten the silverware, stand back, and sigh. Yep, everything looks perfect.
A knock sounds at the door and you quickly take off your apron, straighten your hair and check your makeup in the mirror in the hall. You take one last look around your home. It’s never been so clean. And it’s only right that it should be. When God is coming to dinner, you must present your very best.
You take a deep breath and open the door. Father God is standing on your doorstep. He smiles, “Hello, sweetheart. May I come in?”
“Of course!” You exclaim and open the door wide. You lead him into the dining room and he seems impressed. You offer him a seat but he declines. He instead pulls out the chair for you.
“I don’t understand?” You say as you reluctantly sit down and he scoots the chair in for you.
He smiles and says, “Tonight, I serve you.”
You look up at him, dumbfounded. This was not how you had envisioned the evening going. This isn’t right. You should be serving him, not the other way around. Right?…
A few months ago my team and I were doing a ministry weekend with a team of pastors from California. I invited the team to my home and we had a powerful weekend of training and prayer. As my team and I prepared for this weekend months in advance, we felt the Lord tell us to prepare a seven course meal for them while they were with us. We were to set the table extravagantly. We felt that God had given us specific meanings for each of the courses, and we were to explain the significance behind each one as it was served. It was a lot of work, but God showed his great love through that seven course meal.
A lot of times in our Christian walk we treat God as the guest of honor at the table. We take great pains to set the table of our lives to impress him. We clean house (as best we can) before we invite him into our home. Guests do not prepare the dinner. Guests do not help with washing dishes. And guests are only allowed in the special rooms of the house. They are most definitely not shown the “catch-all room” on the tour. (You know, the room where you threw all the toys and dirty clothes that had been sitting around before your guest arrived?)
But the fact of the matter is, Father God is not the guest – he is the host. God has paid the ultimate price to adopt us into his family. He is the one who has prepared a seven course meal for us and invited us to his table. He does the dishes, and then he goes into the rooms of our hearts that we allow him into to clean up the dirty socks and crusty pizza boxes.
But why is it so hard to see him doing the dirty work? Perhaps it’s because in every other religion, the false gods demand to be served their every (evil) whim at the expense of their followers. My team and I recently went on a trip to India, and I was shocked by the living conditions. Everywhere we went people were living in squalor, trying to scrape by as best they could, while their temples were covered in gold and lavish meals laid out for the gods. But their gods do not answer them. I was so honored to share the love of the only one and true God. The God who always feeds the hungry and heals the brokenhearted. The God who takes off his outer garment, wraps a towel around his waist, and washes our feet.
Christianity is the only religion where our God sets a table before us and our needs are provided for. Our God is a good father, the best father, who values relationship. He is a father who gives good gifts to his children.
So what are these gifts? How do we use them? The truth is, many of us have been given gifts that we have refused to open. Thoughts like, “I don’t deserve this. I’m scared of what’s in the box. I’m not sure if that is for today,” are holding us back from opening the amazing gifts that God has given to us. And the fact is that these gifts are not just for you! They’re to share our amazing Fathers love with those around us.
How would you feel as a child on Christmas and your brother or sister had a present that was for you and your siblings? How would you feel if they didn’t want to open it and share it with you?
Over the next few weeks we are going to be sharing about the nine gifts of the spirit. We want to teach you how to partner with Holy Spirit to activate these gifts. And we would love to invite you to join us for the Gifts from His Heart conference coming up on February 21 and 22 at Refuge City Church, 2610 Shasta Way, Klamath Falls, Oregon.
So come to the bounty of the Fathers table, where the lost are always found, the thirsty are quenched, and the hungry are always fed.
The question is, are you hungry?
Bon appetit!
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