10And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. 11And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? 12But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. 13But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Matthew 9:10-13
Jesus' disciples must have thought that Jesus was crazy as He welcomed dinning with tax collectors and criminals. It really is shocking to the senses to think that Jesus actually came here to save sinners! Jesus was so very comfortable right in the middle of a crowd of people with issues. He was at home in the midst of people who were rejects.
This morning I was reminded of a friend, who has now passed away. When I first met her, I was newly graduated from law school and I had landed a great job as a loan officer with an investment bank. I was on my own and I believed that I was starting to experience some success. I started volunteering for a grassroots group that was interested in celebrating the gifts, talents and academic success of youth. I would meet with the youth once per month and the group would pay for the youth to take trips and to compete with their art, their drama, their spoken word, their scientific aptness and their business acumen.
This friend was a teen at the time. She had been labeled. Every adult in her life called her bad. Teachers, her mother, her friends' parents. People would warn me about her and tell me that she was a bad influence on the other kids. In hindsight it seemed like everyone had formed their opinions of her based upon her behavior rather than on who she was. People didn't really know who she was because her behavior oftentimes preceded her. I learned that she didn't know who she was. She was earning terrible grades, getting suspended from school and just generally acting out.
There came the divine appointment when she decided to participate in the program that I was chairing. It was my first year chairing the program and I didn't really know what to expect. She had come with another friend who was excelling in her field of competition. It didn't really seem like my friend had any purpose about herself. She didn't want to get involved, but she wanted to hang around. She didn't want to extend her self, but she was super sensitive and would get hurt easily. I can remember one day I was taking her and her friend home from one of the meetings. She got out of my car and slammed the door really hard. She began walking off. I backed my car up and made her get back in the car then get out and close the door gently. My comment to her was that whatever was going on in her life, it wasn't my car's fault. Now that I look back on everything that she subsequently shared with me, the slammed car door wasn't really a big deal.
Eventually, this young lady began to participate in the oratory competition. She wrote and spoke very well. She did so well locally that she was selected to participate in the state level competition. She won hands down. She had done so well that sponsors took notice and were proud to send her to the national competition to represent the state. Her presentation was so powerful that she received a standing ovation from the audience and the judges.
From that point forward she was empowered. She was never the same. Her grades improved and she got into college. She earned nothing but A's. She eventually got married and had a daughter of her own. She passed away shortly after. She came to visit me here in Missouri when she was still in college. She shared with me that she had never even been out of Pine Bluff, Arkansas before she started working with the NAACP ACT-SO program. She shared with me that I had believed in her and that encouraged her to believe in herself--in spite of being abused by her step-father, being abandoned by her mother and forced to live with her grandmother. She had been rejected by her father and he lived right down the street from her.
In this Christian walk we cannot be afraid of what people might say about us spending time with the people that we are assigned to. When I first started teach someone told me that It's not the A student who needs the help--any teacher can guide them. It is the troubled student who needs to be taught and it takes a dedicated teacher to reach them.
Other people's problems are uncomfortable to us. We begin to back track and back away when we are presented with real life tough situations. We say we're not equipped to handle it--and perhaps in many ways that's true. If we are not psychologists or psychiatrists we cannot begin just opening up wounds because we are not equipped to help the person obtain the tools that she needs to deal with their past and their pain. At the same time, that shouldn't stop us for dining with publicans and sinners because they need to know that there is healing and deliverance. Jesus did it out of His compassion. He did it because of His agape love. He did it to glorify the Father and to prove that people who others have written off and rejected, God can change. He confounds those who are wise in their own eyes and He gives supernatural insight to those who learn to humble themselves.
Looking at my own life I was drowning. I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore, very deeply stained within and sinking to rise no more, but the Master of the sea heard my despairing cry and from the waters lifted me now safe am I. I realize now that it was love that lifted me. Love was my lifesaver. God's love yet is my lifesaver. Jesus dined with publicans and sinners--not giving any power to what others thought of it because He is the savior of the world. Be encouraged today that we ought not to allow any divine appointments to pass us by--not even when it seems like a challenge. If you can't handle it Bishop and Pastor can. Love that person into the place where they feel comfortable sharing with our leaders. Be encouraged today that love covers a multitude of sins. People can be reconciled to the Father through your capacity to allow the love of Jesus to flow through you.
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