Jesus tells a parable in Luke 14:15-24 of a certain man, who prepared a great banquet, then sent his servant out to notify those on the invitation list that everything was ready. Each of the invitees proceeded to make an excuse whey they could not attend; one had to see some land he had purchased, the other needed to test his oxen, and the third just got married (he must have been writing his share of the thank you cards.) Upon hearing these excuses, the master of the house became angry and bid his servant to bring in the “undesirables” of the city; the poor, maimed, disabled and the blind. After bringing in all he could find, there were still seats available so the servant left the city and headed into the highways and the hedges “to compel them to come in” that the master’s house may be filled.
This parable contains a wealth of knowledge and understanding about how God operates, which I won’t go into here. To summarize this I have developed a deeply theological modern analogy that goes like this, “The kingdom of heaven is like the game of musical chairs.” Stay with me on this and you’ll see what I mean.
To refresh your memory, here is an example how the game of musical chairs is played. Ten people walk in a circle around nine chairs while someone plays music. The music stops unexpectedly and the players lunge for the chairs in attempt to not be the one person left without a chair. One chair is taken away after each round until the winner lands in the last remaining chair at the end.
There are some important similarities between the Kingdom of God and musical chairs and one very important difference. Just like in musical chairs, a believer’s primary objective in life should be to land in their chair at the end of the game, in other words enjoy their eternal salvation. Also like the game, we never know when the music is going to stop and our days on earth will come to an end. If you play the either game like the music will always continue playing you may be disappointed at the end.
The difference between the Kingdom and the game is crucial. Unlike the game, God has a seat prepared for everyone that is playing or not playing…in fact He has prepared a seat for EVERYONE that has ever lived. Just like the parable of the banquet, God’s house will never be too full because His house has billions of seats available, far too many of which are unfortunately empty.
This is where we come in. Instead of striving with others for a particular chair in the game (could be a position, ministry, etc.) we as believers should be telling the world that the music is about to stop but the good news is that there are plenty of seats still available.
I challenge you to figure out where your seat is and then get about the business of helping other people find theirs.
Author Resource:-
Bible Teacher at Sherman Full Gospel Church
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