Luke 15:1-2 AMPC
Now the tax collectors and [notorious and especially wicked] sinners were all coming near to Jesus to listen to Him. And the Pharisees and the scribes kept muttering and indignantly complaining, saying, This man accepts and receives and welcomes pre-eminently wicked sinners and eats with them.
Jesus mixed with all kinds in his earthly life - we see Him at the houses of Pharisees', but also eating and drinking with tax collectors and prostitutes.
In Heaven's Great Banquet, we'll be mixing with all sorts.
There's no room for looking down our noses at others who we think shouldn't be there.
God makes the guest list, based on mercy and kindness.
In the parable of the Prodigal son, there's a particular kind of "party pooper" that wouldn't join in the feast when his erring younger brother returned home penniless and distraught.
Hear his rant, as his father tried to persuade him to join in the banquet:
Luke 15:28-30 AMPC
But the elder brother was angry [with deep-seated wrath] and resolved not to go in. Then his father came out and began to plead with him, but he answered his father, Look! These many years I have served you, and I have never disobeyed your command. Yet you never gave me [so much as] a [little] kid, that I might revel and feast and be happy and make merry with my friends; But when this son of yours arrived, who has devoured your estate with immoral women, you have killed for him that [wheat-] fattened calf!
"This son of YOURS" - reveals he wants to overlook the fact that the guy was part of his family too!
Let's not be party poopers, seeing ourselves as more deserving of salvation than others.
We all get in because of grace and kindness - not on merit!
Put on your dancing shoes and rejoice when anyone "comes home" to Jesus - join the party that's happening in Heaven!
Luke 15:10 AMPC
Even so, I tell you, there is joy among and in the presence of the angels of God over one wicked person who repents ( changes his mind for the better, heartily amending his ways, with abhorrence of his past sins).
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