Everyone’s invited! – Devotion for 7/2/07
Before I moved to Fayetteville I had heard all about the special Fourth of July celebrations that were held out at Ft. Bragg. I had heard about the special music guests who would come, and I would see some of the celebration on Good Morning America. It looked like lots of fun, but I knew that because I am not a soldier, nor am I a veteran, that I could not attend – I was not invited to the celebration. So instead, I’d run around in the backyard with my boys with sparklers, which was fun, but nothing compared to the hijinks that would be going on over at Ft. Bragg. But the first summer when we moved here to Fayetteville, one of the soldiers at the church (who is presently in a location that I told you where he was I’d have to kill you – Hi Duane!) called me and invited me to come out to the Fourth of July celebration at Ft. Bragg with his family. My wife and kids were out of town for the weekend, so I was excited to have something to do, because running around with sparklers all by yourself isn’t as much fun and the neighbors think you’re weird – trust me on this one. I also was incredibly honored to get to be going to a place that I knew that I didn’t belong, because I am not a soldier or a veteran. We got out there and I had so much fun getting to hang out with this family, and then we even met up with some other families from the church, so I got to know some of them even better. We had a great time watching the Golden Eagles parachute team. We had a blast listening to the 82nd Airborne Band play. It was awesome to hear the power of the Howitzers give off a salute for all the states and territories of the US. And the fireworks were awesome!
At some point in time during all the fun I made mention of how grateful I was that I could come with them, since I would not otherwise be allowed to come. They then let me know that everyone is invited, and that you don’t have to be a soldier or a veteran to go the Ft. Bragg celebration, although that does make it easier to get onto base. I thought about all those years that I could have taken my family to the celebration, but I never knew that we could go. Yes, now I know that it is publicized that the community is welcome to go, but somehow before I knew that, I had never heard it. There was a huge party going on, and it was a party I didn’t even know that I could go to. And even though a huge general invitation had been sent out, I never went until one man called and invited me.
Paul says in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” The power of God for salvation is an invitation that is extended to everyone. Yet there are people in the world who do not know that it is for them. There are people who are trying to find satisfaction in life by “running around with sparklers,” when they truly are invited to the biggest celebration of them all – they just don’t know it. Even though a broad and general invitation is cast, somehow that still gets missed. Every church wants to think that “everyone knows they are welcome to come here.” We cannot be ashamed of the gospel. Who can we call and invite to the party?
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