The Good News!
We all look at something or someone at times and think, “well, that’s not supposed to happen” or “I never thought that person would do that”. We humans cannot help but be guided sometimes by our first impressions. We have “lower than heaven” thinking when it come to the potential of people, too. We make judgments about each other without going deeper.
Often, we just miss the mission totally. We, as God’s church, sometimes overlook the “unlikely” who could be followers and servants in ways we never could have imagined. Why? Our thinking and ways and means are not God’s ways. Sometimes we get too caught up in our programs that bypass the people. The administration of those programs takes all our time away from merely listening to the pain of the sick who need a doctor desperately.
Mark, again, quickly lays down the facts of one incident where Jesus explicitly invites the “unlikely” to not only be healed, but to then follow Him. Read and listen with your heart as I did this morning and be transformed by the message of Jesus, Our Lord.
Mark 2, The Message
The Tax Collector
13-14 Then Jesus went again to walk alongside the lake. Again a crowd came to him, and he taught them. Strolling along, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, at his work collecting taxes. Jesus said, “Come along with me.” He came.
15-16 Later Jesus and his disciples were at home having supper with a collection of disreputable guests. Unlikely as it seems, more than a few of them had become followers. The religion scholars and Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company and lit into his disciples: “What kind of example is this, acting cozy with the riffraff?”
17 Jesus, overhearing, shot back, “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? I’m here inviting the sin-sick, not the spiritually-fit.”
Dear Heavenly Father, I feel like I am more the unlikely than the spiritually fit most times. I praise you that you forgave me, the unlikely and made me whole, when others discarded me as unworthy, too much of a mess, or just didn’t see me at all. You gave me worth, love, mercy and grace. You taught me, as my Healer, to show and tell other unlikelys like me that they, too, can be transformed in a process of continual growth, complete with setbacks and all. Thank you, Lord for saving my soul and making me whole. Thank you for the opportunity to go and tell others who are sick where they can find The Doctor. In Jesus Name, Amen
Daily Manna (Coffee with Jesus) 