Last night at home group (it's actually a small church now- over 40 people there last night with two actual groups meeting, one in the family room and one in the living room. We are doing a multi-site home group) we were talking about Luke 15 and how God is seeking us out. I had made the point that Christianity is more about responding than initiating.
One person made the statement, "I used to be in sales, and the thing I hated the most was cold calling." (For those of you that don't know what cold calling is, it is walking into a business uninvited to try to sell a product nobody asked for. Tough stuff.) "This is what I thought Christianity was like- walking uninvited into God's office where He is probably hacked off that you interrupted Him and being received that way. But you are making Christianity sound like a party we are invited to, and we have to decide whether we accept or reject."
Honestly, I had never even thought about putting it that way, but that is exactly what Luke 15 is saying. How do the parables end up? A party. I have found that if God had waited for me to reach up to Him, I never would have. He came and sought me out, calling me back to Him, convicting me of sin and pointing me to Jesus. He came after me like the shepherd going after the lost sheep. He looked for me like the woman searching for the coin. And He waited patiently for me to return like the father in the prodigal son story. Becoming a Christian, or approaching God, isn't like making a cold sales call. It's responding to an invitation to a party. Knowing that truth changes everything.
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