Expect the opposite!

Luke 14:12-14 

Then he turned to the host. "The next time you put on a dinner, don't just invite your friends and family and rich neighbors, the kind of people who will return the favor. 13 Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the tracks. 14 You'll be-- and experience-- a blessing. They won't be able to return the favor, but the favor will be returned-- oh, how it will be returned!-- at the resurrection of God's people."

Food for Thought:

Jesus teaches us today that the surest way of getting is giving. But it is not any kind of giving; it is the giving that expects nothing in return. Why? 

Well, gving is always the thermometer of our getting. Why? Because, whatever God can get through us, He will get to us. Did you know that when you cease to give, you cease to get? Getters don't get happiness. Givers do. Act 20:35. "Keep in memory the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, 'There is a greater blessing in giving than in getting.'"

The law of harvest is to reap more than you sow.  It is true, the people who give always get. Try it. Be today a mind through which Christ thinks; a heart through which Christ loves;  a voice through which Christ speaks; and a hand through which Christ helps.

One of the reasons the Bible was written was to teach us what Jesus teaches us today and always: the opposites. God says we must give to receive, die to live, serve to lead; humble ourselves to be exalted, sow to reap...! Jesus is the best example.

Phillipians 2:3-11

3 Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet- talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. 4 Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. 5 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. 6 He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. 7 Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! 8 Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death-- and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion. 9 Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, 10 so that all created beings in heaven and on earth-- even those long ago dead and buried-- will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, 11 and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.

Mat 10:39 "If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you'll find both yourself and me." 

Psalm 126:6 "Though a man may go out weeping, taking his vessel of seed with him; he will come again in joy, with the corded stems of grain in his arms."

Did you ever run for shelter in a storm, and find fruit that you didn't expect? Did you ever go to God for shelter, driven by outward storms, and there find unexpected fruit. Have you ever been fired to see yourself hired in a better job?

Learn to expect the opposite, or as we sometimes say, expect the unexpected! When fear comes, expect the opposite - faith to rise up inside you. When symptoms attack your body, expect the opposite - God's healing power to touch you. When sadness tries to attach itself to you, expect the opposite - the joy of the Lord to be your strength. When a problem comes your way, a crisis, expect the opposite, look at it as a disguised opportunity; tell yourself that something good will come out of it. Expect the opposite.