The Invitation

Every friendship has a beginning. Somebody says hello first; somebody makes the first call. Sometimes we can remember the moment exactly. More often, looking back, we realise the other person had been reaching towards us for longer than we knew.

The story of Scripture is, among other things, the story of God saying hello first.

We love him, because he first loved us.

1 John 4:19 (KJV)

A friend of publicans and sinners

When Jesus’s critics wanted to insult him, they called him “a friend of publicans and sinners” (Matthew 11:19). They meant it as an accusation. His followers came to hear it as the best news they had ever been told.

Jesus did not wait for people to become respectable before he sat down to eat with them. He went to their houses. He learned their names. He made the first move.

Come as you are

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Matthew 11:28 (KJV)

The invitation is not to a programme or a standard of performance. It is an invitation to a person. “Come unto me.” That is where friendship with God begins: not with our effort to reach him, but with our response to his reaching for us.

For reflection

• When did you first sense that God was reaching towards you?
• What would it look like to accept his invitation again today?