A few weeks back I posted this quote from Steve Stewart on Facebook
Revival isn’t your church being full, it’s your dinner table being full
I never fully explained what I thought that meant. So here it goes….
There are 2 sets of scripture that really drove this idea home for me. First there’s Luke 10:7-8 and then Luke 5:29-32
Lets look at the Luke 10 passage:
7 Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.
8 “When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. 9 Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’
Jesus sent out 72 disciples and gave them instructions on how to reach the cities he is about to visit. In the midst of those instructions Jesus repeats this command “eat with them”.
In the greek language when you want to emphasize something you repeat it. This is one of the only times when a command of Jesus is repeated. It is so important he couldn’t only say it one time, it had to repeated. If you want to reach a city you have to eat with people who don’t know Jesus.
I recently listened to a testimony from an India Church Planter. They visited a village for a prayer walk. According to Luke 10 you wait for the Person of Peace to open their house to you. As they were prayer walking a lady came out from the field wondering what they were doing. They explained they were prayer walking so she invited them to her little hut for some coffee. She also made them some eggs but when she handed the eggs to them they were black because in her excitement she forgot to wash her hands. Knowing what Jesus said they ate the dirty eggs.
Fast forward to today, that field worker has since baptized around 35,000 people and has even raised the dead!
Eating with people is one of the best ways to not only evangelize but also to disciple the people you are eating with.
Now to the second set of scriptures
29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. 30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
31 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Jesus calls a Tax Collector to follow him and the dude leaves his job and follows him immediately. That night this tax collector, Levi, threw him a big party. It says that a large crowd of tax collectors were doing what with Jesus? Eating with him!
The Religious people complained to the followers of Jesus because he was eating with a bunch of sinners.
Jesus answered them by saying “it’s not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” But this is what really drove this home to me. Where were these “sick” going to meet the doctor? It was at the dinner table.
Then he says “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Where were the sinners going to be called? It was at the dinner table!
A revival is known for people getting saved, healed & delivered.
The vehicle Jesus said to be used to get people saved, healed & delivered was the dinner table!
I pray that your dinner table would be full of a bunch of sinners who need healing and may the Spirit of God so invade your dinner that they all leave changed and transformed.
