Suppose you’re planning a wedding celebration for your daughter. As part of the planning, you make a guest list to include relatives and friends who you would like to have at the wedding. Everybody has a wonderful time, and the event is a great success.

A few months pass, and you hear that a couple who came to the wedding are planning a wedding for their daughter. You circle the date on your calendar but, alas, an invitation never arrives. What’s up with that? You invited that family to your event — why wouldn’t they have invited you to theirs? If you had known that this was going to happen, perhaps you wouldn’t have included them on your guest list after all.

But wait a minute, why would you think that way? Wasn’t your event a great success? When you were making out your guest list, was it truly just people who you wanted at the wedding or was there supposed to be some kind of unspoken understanding that your guests were then obligated to invite you to their events?

It’s this type of “I’ll do for you as long as you do for me” attitude that Jesus calls out at the dinner at the home of one of the Chief Pharisees. He knows there’s lots of pride among the guests at this dinner (which is why He has already advised them to not seek to exalt themselves by sitting at the best tables). He now offers advice to the host (and the others at the dinner) about the guest lists for future dinner parties. He tells them:

“When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee.” (Luke 14:12)

Is Jesus saying it’s not good to invite friends and relatives to a dinner? No, what He’s actually saying is that if the only people you do things for (such as invite them to a dinner) are people who will turn around and do the same for you, then what does that have to do with serving God? Any average person — whether or not they know the Lord — would do the same.

Who does Jesus tell the host should be invited that would constitute service to God?

“When thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.” (Luke 14:13-14)

Clearly, the type of people that Jesus is describing would never be throwing a fancy dinner party. So, it would only be a desire to serve God (by serving mankind) that would motivate someone to invite this group to a big dinner. As Jesus adds, people who do things for people who cannot reciprocate are blessed and will be recompensed in some way by the Lord at the resurrection of the just.

What are some ways that we can do this today? There are many different, ways but here are a few suggestions:

• If you know someone who doesn’t have a car, perhaps you can provide transportation for them (to church, to the store, wherever).
• If you know someone who is homebound, perhaps you can visit with them.
• If you know someone who is poor, perhaps a well-placed monetary gift will help them in an extreme time of need.

In all of these cases, the person you are helping will not be in a position to reciprocate, so doing this demonstrates (to yourself and to God) that you’re truly interested in just helping people.

Or to go with the example that Jesus used, you could actually invite people to dinner at your home who would never be in a position to reciprocate. I know people who use Thanksgiving as a time to invite guests who cannot afford their own Thanksgiving dinner and/or don’t have anybody to share a dinner with. Talk about a day blessed by God!

Whatever it is that you choose to do for others — if you do it solely to help the people with no expectation of anything in return, God will bless you for that. Helping people who can’t reciprocate is a great way to test your own motivation — you know you won’t be getting anything in return, so you can feel good knowing that you’re simply showing love to others and that you’re serving God by serving mankind.

This article has undergone ministry review and approval.

Want to listen to past articles? Click the button below to visit the Gospel Blog YouTube channel, where you can access all audio blogs.