Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the “sinners” and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners”
Character Check How can I find time to spend with people who aren’t “like me”?
In Business Terms One positive tension that indicates spiritual health is the ability to walk in God’s presence and enjoy him for ourselves, yet still feel the world’s hurts.
Recently it struck me that I run around with pretty good people: they’re friendly, creative, fun to be with, and for the most part well-educated. My friendships were causing me to miss seeing the world through the eyes of the broken, lonely, and downtrodden.
I decided I needed to do something to change my perspective, so I went to night court. In Nashville, all the arrests made in our county, as well as in the city itself, are brought in before a magistrate during night court. Fifty seats are available for spectators.
As I watched the parade of people, suddenly I realized, Hey, we’re not winning. The kind of people I hang around with are not typical. I saw broken families, I saw drunkenness and poverty, I saw the victims of fighting and cutting, the rawest kind of life you can imagine. I discovered I was completely out of touch with the hurts of people.
Befriending pretty good people had caused me to ignore a world in pain.
—Danny Morris
Something to Think About We don’t like lepers and losers very well; we prefer climbers and comers. For Christians, the temptation to be conformed to this world is desperately sweet and strong. Yet, says the apostle Paul, we are children of God if we suffer with Christ. – Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.
