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The Exit

I heard a story recently about a famous singer who was invited to sing at a wedding. She accepted the invitation and donned her finest gown, styled her hair and make-up just so, hired a car and went to the wedding with her husband. At the ceremony, she sang so beautifully there was not a dry eye in the church. After the ceremony, many people complimented her on her singing abilities.

Afterwards, she and her husband went to the location of the wedding reception in the hired car. When they entered the reception hall, they marveled at the sight of it all. Never before had the singer seen such decorations. It finer than anything she had ever seen before and she told herself that the bride and groom spared no expense in preparing this wedding reception for all their honoured guests.

Feeling confident in herself, she headed towards the front of the room, nearest the bride and groom's table to locate her seat assignment. To her dismay, neither she nor her husband were placed close to the bride and groom. But knowing what a wonderful contribution she made to the ceremony, she figured that she would not be seated too far from the head table. So she wondered from table to table searching for her name. After a few frustrating minutes, she was shocked to find that her name was not on any table in the room.

Baffled by this, she marched up the maitre d' and demanded to know where she was to be seated. He checked the guest list and told her that her name did not appear. Convinced that he had somehow made a mistake, she told him to search again. Once more, the maitre d' was unable to locate her name. Finally she declared, "I sang at the wedding, my name has to be there."

The maitre d' replied, "Ma'am it doesn't matter what you did, if your name is not on this list, you may not stay for the feast." And with that he summoned two waiters to escort the singer and her husband to the exit.

Inside their hired car, the singer's husband turned to her and asked, "Didn't you RSVP for us?" Tearfully, she responded, "No. I got too busy to send in the RSVP, but I figured since I sang at the wedding we would automatically be admitted to the reception feast."

In Matthew 7:21-23, Christ warns us not everyone who calls His name and proclaims that He is Lord will make it into Heaven, but only those who do the will of the Father. How sobering is that? It might be possible for those of us who labour tirelessly for the Kingdom of God to end up missing out on our eternal reward because we are not really doing God's will (perhaps our motives aren't pure...perhaps we are living duplicitous lives...)

I know that the will of God can be inconvenient...it often is. But our responsibility to do His will no matter what. He can handle the rest. Otherwise, after a life of "Christian service", we might find ourselves being escorted to the exit on Judgment Day.

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