“’Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?’ So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen.” Matthew 20: 15, 16 NKJV.

Have you read the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard? They were certainly an unhappy group of people. Seems they went to work for a landowner in his vineyard, agreeing on a denarius (or a penny) per day as their pay. Some started early in the morning, others at the third hour, the sixth hour, and others the ninth.

Then at the eleventh hour the owner went out and found even more laborers and asked them why they were not working. They said no one had hired them so he told them to go to work and “…whatever is right you will receive.” Matthew 20:7 NKJV.

When it was time to pay the workers, beginning with those who had come in at the eleventh hour, he gave them a denarius. So when those that came in early in the morning, and worked all day long, they then assumed because they had worked a lot longer than everyone else that they would receive more.

But they also just received a denarius.

So they complained to the landowner saying, “‘Those people worked only one hour, and yet you’ve paid them just as much as you paid us who worked all day in the scorching heat.’”

“But he answered one of them and said, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way…Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good? So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called but few chosen.” Matthew 20: 12-16 NKJV.

There is a great lesson here for us today just as there was for the Jewish population Jesus was teaching. He was telling them that the Gentiles had just as prominent a place in the Kingdom as they did; God’s chosen people. How could that be? But yet it was true…they were being grafted in the Vine!

The same applies to us today…there is no distinction in the Church.

The Door is wide open, He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and we should be standing close to the Door ushering everyone in, equally and quickly, before it is too late.

There is also another distinction in the first and the last and that is servanthood. If we really want to be found doing the King’s business we will desire to be last in the Kingdom.

Mark 9:35. “And He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.”

What are our true motives as members of the Body of Christ? Do we feel as if we are owed something? That because we have served God all of our lives, because we were raised in The Church, that we should receive a bigger reward?

Do we truly have the heart of a servant?

Are we aware that our only purpose on this earth is to tell others about Jesus Christ?

Go, preach, tell.

We have much to be grateful for, knowing we have been grafted in the Vine! Let us not worry about who came in first, who worked the hardest, the longest or should have a bigger crown.

Let us just be about our Father’s business, sharing the Gospel of the Kingdom to a lost and dying world.

Give hope to the hopeless and strength to the weary; give Jesus.

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