<p>14:12 <i>And he also said to him that had invited him: When you make a dinner or a supper, call not your friends, nor your brothers and sisters, nor your kinsmen, nor rich neighbours, unless they also invite you and repay you</i>- The Lord gave His parable about how <i>He</i> has invited us, through the call of the Gospel, to a great supper. Quite simply, the very experience and wonder of having been invited to the Kingdom should lead us to likewise invite others. But further. If we have truly understood the implications of the Lord&rsquo;s gracious calling, if we have truly perceived our desperation, we will take <i>the</i> lowest place, considering ourselves the <i>lowest</i> and least worthy. And we will therefore go out and invite others of the same class to which we perceive ourselves to belong- the poor, the maimed and blind.</p><p>Our attitude to others will be reflective of our perception of God's grace in calling us- as we were invited by such grace, so we will invite others to <i>our</i> table who likewise cannot recompense us. If we are the blind and maimed invited to the Lord's table, we will invite the blind and maimed to our table. The extent of God's grace to us really needs to sink in. When was the last time <i>you</i> did an act of pure grace to others like this...?</p><p>The Lord Jesus described those who responded to the Kingdom Gospel as entering into a marriage supper (Mk. 2:18,19; Lk. 14:12-24), which was a well-known figure for the future Messianic Kingdom (Is. 25:6-9). By eating / fellowshipping with Him in faith, His followers were in prospect enjoying the Kingdom life. To exclude people from His table is to seek to exclude people from His Kingdom.</p>