"Are only a few people going to be saved?"

                      

Monday musical meditations on God's good news






















An opening prayer:

    Lo, many shall come from the east and the west
    And sit at the feast in the kingdom above
    With Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the blest,
    Invited by Jesus, amazed by God’s love.

    But people who always resisted his grace,
    No matter what good they may claim from the past
    Shall then be condemned and cast out from his face 
    The last shall be first and the first shall be last!

    O Lord, let us hear Christ’s compassionate call:
    The door is so narrow; so few enter through.
    That while there is time, we make haste, one and all,
    And find our salvation forever in you.

    God grant that we gather with all heaven’s throngs,
    Who by Jesus’ blood stand in robes gleaming white,
    Eternally raising to him grateful songs,
    Eternally rescued from hell’s darkest night.

    The heavens shall ring with an anthem more grand
    Than earth’s highest praises could ever suggest.
    The people of God shall receive from his hand
    The crown of the victors, the crown of the blest. Amen.

Luke 13:22–30

  • Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. 23 Someone asked him, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?”
  • He said to them, 24 “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. 25 Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’
  • “But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’
  • 26  “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’
  • 27 “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’
  • 28 “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. 29 People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. 30 Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.”

Good news questions

  • Jesus says people will come from all over the world to his Father's kingdom feast.
  • Without faith in him, you will be shut out. Make every effort to enter through the narrow door.
  • How did Jesus make every effort in your place?
  • Forever, really, the last will be first? How does that change things now?

For others pray

  • That God spreads the good news of the kingdom of the Son he loves in Equatorial Guinea

J.S. Bach's beautiful music for today

  • BWV 45 (YouTube, "You have been told, man, what is good")
  • In this cantata, we start with Micah 6:8. What does God require of us?
  • To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before him.
  • Many will claim on the last day to Jesus that they did outstanding religious things,
  • but he will say, "I never knew you."

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