Is Your Life Worthy Of The Gospel?

By Odon Bulamba (26 April 2002)

Is your life worthy of the gospel? If your life is worthy of the gospel then praise the Lord, but if it isn’t then what are the reasons.

Luke 14:5-6. Then He asked them, if one of you has a son or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull him out? And they had nothing to say.

Would you leave your own son in a well to die just because it is a Saturday or Sunday? If your brother or sister is in a sin, will you tell them their fault? We remind our children of their sins everyday, but when it comes to our neighbour’s children we close our eyes.

There was a lady who loved her son more than her other children. One day God told her that her house was going to burn down with her children in it, so God ask her to do her best to free all the children. 5 hours later a fire broke out in the house, so the mother grabbed her son first and carried him to safety, but she left her other children to make their own way out. So did this mother love all her children? What was the difference between her son and the other children? Why do we like our children more than our neighbour’s children? Jesus wants to teach us something through this. We think that our children belong to us but they belong to God because when God decides to take back their life we can’t do anything to stop Him.

Now God is looking at you and asking Himself, is your life worthy of the gospel? Our life doesn’t belong to us but it belongs toGod; we are just here to manage it. You are responsible for your children but their lives don’t belong to you, so manage their life in a good way and God will be happy. Some people manage other people’s finances, and if there is ten cents missing they have to explain why it is missing. It means that one day we will have to give an account of our life with deep explanations. If God sees something blurry in your life He will ask you, what happened here? And if you cannot give an answer it proves that your life was not worthy of the gospel.

Only the gospel can give us a better life in God’s eyes. It is true that Muslims have good deeds but their lives are not worthy of the gospel, also Jewish people try to show the world that they are holy, but their lives are not worthy of the gospel. Read Luke 14:15-24 in your Bible. There was a feast organised and invitations were given. An invitation is usually written with the date, time, and venue on it and it isn’t given to just anybody. Have you ever seen a billionaire who has invited the whole world to a feast? It means that invitations are given to people who can be trusted, but above all this invitation is a sign of honour. When someone invites you to a feast they always count the number of chairs so that they will know how much it will cost.

Jesus gave us an invitation to His banquet, which is the Word of God. It is an invitation that gives us the exact time, exact place and where we are going to meet. The Bible speaks about man from the beginning to the end and gives exact details of about him. Those who cannot read an invitation can listen because an invitation can be oral, so what are you going to do when you receive an invitation? We have to organise ourselves so that we can make a decision. Jesus gave us the Word but we have to decide what we are going to do with it. If we don’t care about it, woe to us because if we are not there when Jesus calls His own (us), He will call others to replace us if we don’t come.

What happened to the brother mentioned in the parable? When invitations are given out you must reply with an answer, but when the time came to answer back these invitations (Luke 14:15-24) everybody was too busy and they gave all the excuses available. As the church of God we are losing our aim because we don’t want to answer the call of Jesus.

What is it to answer an invitation? It is a time to present our faith and spiritual actions before God. God will know if we have read the invitation because our deeds will answer for us, but when you refuse an invitation you will not be counted for. When Jesus gives us an invitation through His Word we have to reply before the cut off date, so we must know the exact time and date.

If you are invited to a feast you will not go with dirty clothes or smelly feet, because a feast is something that people honour. When we go to the feast of the Lord we have to wear clean clothes to show God that we honoured his invitation. Christians today know the Word of God but they don’t know how to practice it, they find excuse after excuse and that is why there is a disease among Christians today.

The people of Israel rejected Jesus and today they are going through a very difficult spiritual situation. Many people are given the grace to accept Jesus Christ and are given opportunities to know Him, but they don’t want to answer His invitation. I know a Pastor in America who would let his Sunday school class go 15 minutes early so he could have a smoke before the preaching.

Today as Christians we push people away so we can have our freedom and we forget that the eye of God is watching. As a result of our blindness we judge, fight and condemn each other. The Bible says that God called the poor, crippled, blind and the lame when no one accepted His invitation, and as Christians we are living this today, we live a life that doesn’t please God. We know the gospel says that we have to love, but instead of loving each other we hate each other, so are our lives worthy of the gospel? Remember when Cain killed Abel? Even though the blood of Abel was asking for revenge God didn’t revenge Cain, instead God said that if anybody killed Cain they would be cursed for up to seven generations, however many Christians today have a revengeful spirit. If God said this about Cain why don’t we react this way as well? Why do we always want revenge or threaten others? Sometimes our way of speaking or our negative thoughts lead us to murder others. Even the lack of respect or acknowledgement of authority for others can lead us to hang people.

The Bible says that you cannot love God if you don’t love your neighbour, so how can you respect God if you don’t respect Michael? If you don’t love Shari how will you love God? If you hate Hayley how will you love God? Is your life worthy of the gospel?

A man was given a $10,000 cheque and he looked after it more than his soul, and when time came to cash his cheque the bank said there was no money in the account where the cheque was from. How many times do we think that material things are more important than spiritual things? How many times do we take care of God’s Word in our lives? How many times do we practice what we have learnt from God’s Word? It will be a shame if Jesus were to come back and you stayed behind because everybody will look at you and say, are you the one who prayed and danced in the street to God? Even though Jesus invited many people to go to His feast, they rejected His invitation and will never be invited again. If someone keeps on sinning and is led by an evil spirit, that spirit will call on seven other spirits and they will wear you down.

People say they are Christians but their actions tell another story, even though they know about God’s grace they can’t see it. God knew who Pharaoh was and when Moses asked him to let God’s people go Pharaoh said, who is this God you worship whom we cannot see? What happen to Pharaoh in the end? He lost his life and family.

For example, many Christians will criticize Michael because he prays everyday with poor people and they see no miracles, however I can assure you that those who are humiliated by people God always elevates them, and those who think they are strong Christians, they become weak. If your actions do not walk together with the gospel God will not elevate you, so we always have to ask ourselves before doing something if it is worthy of the gospel? If it isn’t worthy of the gospel, just stop because God is watching you. Ask yourself if your way of talking worthy of the gospel. Ask yourself, is the way I prepare to read the gospel, is it worthy? What are you doing if your life is not worthy of the gospel? You can only serve God or the devil and we can never be in the middle because the Bible says we must be on the left or on the right.

We all know the story about the foolish virgins. They were ready to receive their husbands that night but they missed one thing and that was wisdom. If they were wise they could have used the light of others, but they decided to leave and search for more oil. The foolish virgins found more oil but when they came back the door was shut. This shows us how people don’t want the reproach and light of others. Instead of Odon taking advantage of the light when Shari tells him that his actions don’t please God, Odon turns to Shari and tells her he doesn’t need her advice. This is lack of wisdom and the Bible says that when we lack wisdom we don’t fear God, and if you don’t fear God in your life you are a fool. When you know that lying is a sin but you keep on lying it means that you are a fool, and if you don’t organise your life when you receive an invitation you are a fool, and when you act like a fool be sure that the Lord will lock the door on you. You can knock forever but the Lord will not open the door, and that is why God doesn’t answer our prayers. So we have to fear God and not man.