Morning Meditation“Morning by morning, O Lord, you hear my voice”
(Psalm 5:3)
September 4
Anybody Can Qualify
(Please read Revelation 22:17and Matthew 11:28-30)
If you’ve ever applied for a job or entered a school, you’ve gone through the exercise of stating your qualifications for that job or school,
Almost every employer, for almost every job, asks for the applicant’s qualifications. Whether you’re a doctor or lawyer or carpenter or barber, certain credentials are required. Even Army draftees have to pass physical and mental tests.
But Jesus waives such obstacles. His blanket invitation is to all people. Anybody can qualify to become his servant, and the entry requirements are simple. Look at the categories mentioned in our two texts: all who are weary and heavy laden and all who thirst for the water of life without cost. This invitation fits perfectly with Peter’s declaration that the Lord is “not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9, NAS).
There are folks whose lives have been bungled so severely that they think Jesus could not possibly welcome them into his kingdom. Others feel that they’re too weak and sinful to ever become the kind of people with whom the Lord would associate. Wrong! Jesus knows your problems and your failures, but he will take you anyway. Because he can change you into the kind of person you’d like to be, and he knows that without him you’ll never make it.
The process of changing may be difficult, of course. You may want to give up and slide back into the kind of person you hate to be. But if you hang in there, the pain will be replaced by pure joy. So believe it, he really wants you.