Luke 17:8 What's for Dinner? - A Devotional for Perfectionists

Wednesday 2/29/12   What’s for Dinner? – A Devotional for Perfectionists

Luke 17:8 But will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink’?

Interpretation:

     Okay, maybe it’s just me, but does it bother anyone else that we don’t know what’s being eaten here. Right, I get Jesus is just giving an example and there’s no need to get all nit-picky on the details. But I’ve heard it said from others, I’ve said it myself, and I’m sure you have to – it’s that question asked by a starving person who’s quite interested in food at the moment – it’s the question of “What’s for dinner?” It’s a basic question; people just want to know what they’ll be eating.

     Yet here, it doesn’t seem like that’s the case. The master is just telling the servant to prepare something for his supper. Why? What happens if the servant wants to please his master, but he prepares the wrong meal? What if he burns the food? Will the master get mad? Will he stand up and yell at his servant and say how the servant didn’t prepare what he wanted, did it wrong, or didn’t do what he had asked? Well, technically, even if the servant messed up by making a meal the master didn’t like and he burnt it in the process, at least the master can’t get upset with him for not doing what he had asked – after all, all the master asked for was something.

     I see Jesus as the master and us as the servant. Jesus asks us to do something, but He’s not always into the details like we think He might be. While we are worried that we might be preparing the wrong meal or we might be messing it up greatly, Jesus isn’t worried about that so much as our heart attitude. In 1 Samuel 16:7 God tells Samuel, “For the Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

     I know for me personally, I want to prepare God a meal that He will enjoy – after all, it’s the chief end of man to glorify God. When God asks me to do something, I want to be able to present Him with the best result; but many times, although I might try, I know I’ve failed somehow and my offering to God isn’t as great as I hoped it to be. Yet I need to remember that God still sees my heart, and that’s what He’s concerned about rather than “What’s for dinner?” God’s not a starving God who’s concerned about what’s on the menu. Rather, He’s a God who loves His servants and is concerned about what’s on our hearts.

Application: When I am doing something to serve Him, I will remind myself that God is not so much concerned about the end results and details of the actual service as He is with my heart’s focus on wanting to please Him.