I was emotional, confused, and desperately-seeking-for-answers and God said to me, "Come to the Table". I accepted His invitation and took my place at the large banquet table. Four seats from the head of the table as I remember it. Not first, second or third but fourth and for some reason, I was surprised that it didn't seem to matter where at the table I sat.
There was beauty in the lack of desire to try position myself in a more "favourable" place at the Table. Where or when or why I sat, didn't seem to matter, in fact it seemed that little or nothing of who I was determined my place at the table. Over time, in revisiting this vision, I have become increasingly aware of the fact that it is by the love, grace and faithfulness of Christ in me that holds my place at the Table so strongly. I have heard a hundred messages around the "truth" of Christ in me but nothing compares to when the Holy Spirit begins to make the truth live in you and you experience the fact that yes He, “the truth”, does live in me.
With this revelation came the difficult loss of the foothold of pride. Difficult because, even though we don't want to be prideful, we can still find ourselves trusting in our own ability and accomplishments. We so often feel it’s what we have done, what we have earned and our goodness that makes us acceptable to God. But when we sit at the table and experience His goodness and beauty we begin to understand the significance of the Apostle Paul's words in Ephesians 2:8-9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”
We don’t usually hold onto pride consciously. It is human nature to justify our position and worthiness by what we can bring or contribute, by how good we have been or at least how hard we have tried. The challenge of the gospel and the invitation is to let go of the effort of climbing a spiritual/positional ladder and of what you think you have already obtained by climbing such a ladder. In its place, we need to trust in God’s grace. There is still immense value in what we can bring to the Table, the “good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.” They just don’t establish our place at the Table or God’s love towards.
The story in the gospel of Luke 9:43-50 can help to illustrate this challenge. The disciples have just seen Jesus do amazing miracles and have been blessed to be a part of it too. Jesus has somewhat cryptically said that He will be "delivered over into the hands of men" (giving himself to the point of death that all may know the love of God towards them) but the disciples didn't understand. They saw Jesus like any other King-to-be. Just a really awesome one. He would bring freedom from the oppressor and life to the needy. They must have thought that it would be done in similar ways to which all other Kings had gained "peace" and "power" in the past and they wanted to continue to be a part of it.
The disciples did not understand what Jesus was talking about and they chose not to ask what He meant. Instead they started to work out their place or position within this new kingdom, who was on what rung of the ladder.
I will put it this way. When we misunderstand why Jesus came we will misunderstood our part to play in it all. Or when we misunderstand the King we misunderstand His Kingdom.
“An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and had him stand beside him. Then he said to them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For it is the one who is least among you all who is the greatest.”
The Kingdom of God is not a pyramid of power but a family, invited to walk together. It is not about rising above others but the greatest call is to become the "least". We do this, not by becoming nothing, but by becoming one who has a heart to lift others up as this is the heart of God; to pour out our lives to love others.
When we have a revelation of the unretracted invitation to Come to the Table and into this family we begin to experience greater levels of grace. We find ourselves trusting in God’s unrelenting love and no longer fighting to establish ourselves or maintain our worth and position within this family. We call this "sonship", where we trust we are loved and welcomed to be a part of all that God in doing on the earth, simply because of His love for us.
When I was sitting in the presence of God one night I became very aware of what I had to bring before God and it was nothing to flash. It was just me. But that’s enough.
The term "opportunity cost" means the choices you couldn't choose, or the opportunities you miss out on, because of the choice you did make. For example, if you have two paths you could choose to walk down and you choose path A, the opportunity cost is all the things you would have experienced and who you would become by those experiences on path B. To sit at the Table of God, the opportunity cost is a self-determined, self earned, self-made, independent existence. I believe that most of us desire to make this transformation from independent to God-dependent and in choosing to do so we embark on a beautiful journey into a beautiful relationship with our faithful God. Trusting that He is holding on to us even when we don't think we are holding onto him. This is faith.
If you enjoy reading my thoughts in this blog then I highly recommend you read the rest of the series, which I’m sure will bring greater understanding and opportunities for transformation.
