NOTES for Luk 14:12-15

The teaching about a meal to which it is better to invite those who need it and cannot repay us has many parallels in Christ’s words. Apparently He spoke about this often, and the thought recurs repeatedly in the Evangelists’ accounts. “And your Father who sees in secret will reward you,” the Lord says in the Sermon on the Mount. In essence, He says the same thing in the parable of the Last Judgment: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for Me.” What we do for another person, we do for God. Strictly speaking, this in itself is an abundant reward beyond measure. By humbling Himself so far as to need us, God thereby exalts us to an inconceivable dignity that we have done nothing to deserve. Moreover, when we act in this way, we act like Him. For when God does good to us, what repayment can He expect? What can we give Him except the gratitude of our hearts? And when we realize the likeness to God that He has granted us, this means that He Himself is acting within us, for the source of this likeness to God is in Him, not in us. Thus the source of God’s eternal life is opened within you.