7.October.2026
An All-Inclusive Departure From “Normal”
How seriously do we take this relationship? Is it an activity we fit into the week, an addendum attached to a life that otherwise stays the same, or is it everything? That is the question underneath all of this, and Jesus never left the answer vague.
When I was about twelve, I learned a song in Sunday school called “The Wedding Banquet,” also known as “I Cannot Come.” It was a children’s song, and somehow it impressed me more than many things I have heard since. It tells the parable Jesus told about a great supper, where the people who were invited all began to make excuses.
And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. Luke 14:18-20
None of those things were wrong. Land, oxen, and a new marriage are ordinary and good parts of life. The problem was where each one was placed. Every one of them was put ahead of the invitation, and that breaks the first commitment, to love the Lord with everything, so it is not harmless. It is also exactly how it tends to go with us. We make a plan for our life and then ask God to bless it. The invitation runs the other direction. We surrender our heart to Him first, and then we find out what His purpose is.
Romans 8:28
Jesus meets the same thing in Luke 9.
And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.
Luke 9:59-62
Notice that both men say Lord, and both add first. A Lord with a first attached is not being treated as Lord. That is why the word in Romans 10:9 matters.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus… thou shalt be saved. Romans 10:9
Paul does not write Savior there. A person can say Savior and have the final say over their own life. No one can say Lord and continue in their own way.
So how does anyone know where they stand? Hold something in your hand and ask a plain question. Can I live without it? Whether a person believes in God or not, everything they own will eventually be handed down, given away, or lost, so the real question is what it is doing to me while I have it. Is it something I use every day, or does it carry an attachment that keeps pulling me back to a time I am not meant to live in? If the honest answer is that I cannot live without it, that is not a failure. It is an opportunity to challenge myself and ask why. There are things I have chosen to let go of because they did not help me grow, spiritually or emotionally, and the only reason I could was that I decided to do what He was telling me.
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
Galatians 2:20
That is what everything actually looks like. Not a life with Jesus added to it, but a life that has been exchanged, with Him living it from the inside.
And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. Luke 9:23
Jesus won’t mean anything to you, unless He is everything to you.
Daily, not once.
Many of us say He is my Savior, and while that is true and precious, I challenge all of us to ask ourselves this question honestly.
Is He my Lord, or only my Savior?
If you would like to sit with the parable a little longer, here is the song that I still can sing years later.
https://youtu.be/VWsczVGWi94?is=UI4DTYMthFiHT4Ze
Make today count and see you tomorrow.
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