“I Have Not Come To Call The Righteous, But Sinners To Repentance”

After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. 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?”

Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Luke 5:27-32

How often are we guilty of undeserved admiration for our “clean lives?” It’s easy to give the impression of being virtuous, simply do nothing difficult, controversial, or upsetting to people. But Jesus said we are to love people who don’t agree with us, who don’t share our battles, and who may not even like us.

Jesus was frequently in trouble with religious leaders who were more concerned about keeping their own reputations clean than they were about spiritual conditions of those they were supposed to care for. The considered Jesus and His disciples unclean for mingling with sinners when they were simply trying to rescue people from their destructive way of life.

True disciples of Jesus are willing to risk their own reputations to help others out of the mire of sin.

Christ sent us out to bring others in.

Our Daily Bread – October 21, 2014