Respond to Jesus Today
"Jesus said to him, 'Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.'" -- Luke 19:9-10
Zacchaeus was a really unpopular man. He was a tax collector. Folks viewed tax collectors as thieves and sinners. Nobody wanted to associate with them. We don't know if Zacchaeus was an honest man or not. The Bible doesn't tell us. But people judged him as dishonest and looked down on Zacchaeus for being a sinner.
Zacchaeus had to know how people felt about him. He didn't seem to care though. Jesus was coming and he wanted to see. Zacchaeus climbed a tree to get a better look. As Pastor Meghan said today, sometimes we have to remove ourselves from the crowd to truly see what's right in front of us.
Zacchaeus did see. Truly. Jesus singled him out and Zacchaeus responded. While the crowd grumbled that Jesus was going to a sinner's house, Zacchaeus repented and vowed to give half his possessions to the pour and pay back anyone he had cheated four times the amount.
I wonder how many of us are like the people in that crowd. We judge someone by their profession. We hold ourselves up as better than someone else. We make a nasty comment or listen as someone else does the talking. Somehow we think we're better people, better Christians, than those "sinners" we see around us.
How many people have walked away from Jesus because of what they saw in us? How tragic is that? We're supposed to reflect the light of Jesus. We're supposed to show people His hope, His kindness, His compassion. Instead, we're so busy judging that we can't see our own reflections in the mirror. We don't see ourselves as the sinners we truly are.
Zacchaeus really saw Jesus that day. He understood what and who he was. And he wanted to know Jesus. Truly know Him. We see that in his public repentance and vow to change and make restitution. Repentance always has an outward appearance, Pastor Meghan told us. On that day, Zacchaeus climbed a tree, saw himself as he really was and changed his life.
How about us? Are we willing to do something different today so that we can see ourselves a little more clearly? It doesn't have to be dramatic. You could sit somewhere different in church. You could stop talking about volunteering and actually do it. Maybe you could give someone your smile or a kind word on a bad day. It doesn't have to be dramatic. Small changes can make a huge impact on the lives around us.
Jesus is reaching out to you and me just as he reached out to Zacchaeus on that day long ago. How will we respond?
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