Some invitations are easy to ignore. A flyer on the windshield. An email you delete before you finish reading the subject line.
Other invitations stop you in your tracks. A grandparent pats the seat beside them and says, “Come sit with me. I want to tell you something.”
That second kind of invitation carries weight. It comes from someone who loves you and has something worth passing on.
Parents and grandparents, you have that kind of invitation to offer. Sunday school teachers, so do you. The greatest gift you can give the children in your life is not your opinion. It is a Word planted so deep in your own heart that you can say, “Come and listen to what God says.”
That is exactly the invitation Joshua gave Israel on the edge of the Jordan. And what they heard when they came is what every one of us needs to hear.
Scripture: Joshua 3:9 — “Come here and listen to the words of the LORD your God.”
Additional reading: John 15:13 — “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
After calling the people to consecrate themselves, Joshua gave a second instruction. Come and listen. Open the Word.
The clearest way we hear the voice of God today is through his Scriptures. That is why the people who teach and preach at our church do not say, “Come listen to me.” We say, “Come and listen to the words of the Lord your God.”
Look closely at that last phrase. The Lord your God.
Think about who Joshua was talking to. For forty years these people had watched their parents die in the wilderness because of unbelief. They had grumbled about the manna. They had fallen into sin with Moab at Shittim, the very place where they were now standing.
And still Joshua says, he is your God. Israel did not earn that loyalty. Neither do we.
There is a word for someone who pursues you that persistently and that patiently. It is love.
Some people read the Bible and walk away picturing a God whose heart is full of nothing but wrath. God will judge sin. But that is never the whole story. Where sin abounds, grace abounds much more. And no one has ever loved more than the One who laid down his life for his friends. That is what God has done for us in Jesus.
I need that news more than anyone. I am grateful I get to deliver it.
When you open the Word, one of the first things it teaches you about the God who leads you is that he loves you. He has not given up on you. After every wilderness and every failure, he is still your God.
That is worth sitting down to hear. And it is worth passing on.
Reflect: Who in your life needs you to invite them to “come and listen”? Where have you seen God’s patient love pursue you even after you wandered?