You're on the Invitation List!

Today's epistle lesson from "The Daily Office" readings claims that we have received an invitation "to participate in the life of God." A little later in this same passage, we are called to confirm God's invitation to us. We get to choose whether or not we will receive all that God wants to give to us - "firm footing" as we participate in God's inbreaking kingdom in the here and now.

As I thought about this invitation in today's scripture reading, I couldn't help but to think about the couple who recently attended a State dinner at the White House without an invitation exposing a major security breach that should never have happened. This just goes to show how important invitations and being on the guest list really are.

In this Season of Advent, this scripture from II Peter offers us the good news that we are invited to attend the coming of Jesus Christ into our world. The invitation is extended to shepherds, to wisemen, and to all who are willing to make the journey to Bethlehem and bow down in worship and adoration of the Christ Child.

In this first week of Advent, consider yourself on the official guest list to join the nativity. During these four weeks, let's journey together to Bethlehem. There's room for all of us around the manger.

II Peter 1 (The Message)

3-4 Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.

5-9 So don't lose a minute in building on what you've been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can't see what's right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.

10-11 So, friends, confirm God's invitation to you, his choice of you. Don't put it off; do it now. Do this, and you'll have your life on a firm footing, the streets paved and the way wide open into the eternal kingdom of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.

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