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.”
Mark 2:15-17
The last couple days the Holy Spirit has been working on me, turning me inside out yet again, and so I wanted to throw out there a few rhetorical questions about relating to others that He has been asking me:
When we say, "WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?", how does that impact how and who you interact with?
Does someone drinking wine a stumbling block to you, offend you?
How then do you feel about Jesus' first miracle where at the wedding in Cana He turned enough water into wine to fill 4,000 glasses?
What is your perception, your definition of holiness, and how do you perceive yourself?
Are you "too holy", too "different" to associate with different groups of people, whatever those exclusionary qualifiers are? Conversely, is your self esteem so low that you feel that you have nothing to offer, that no one wants to associate with you, or get to know you?
Are there unspoken qualifiers that keep you from others? Are they too young, too old, wrong neighborhood, watch the "wrong" movies or TV programs, those who still curse, over educated, under educated, smell bad, different political parties or views, or anything else a reason might be found that keeps us from relationships with many others?
If we are truly called to be imitators of Jesus, how can we act like Jesus, without interacting with others-all kinds of others, not just those who are just like us- like Jesus did? What does it mean to fellowship?
When Jesus said,"Greater love than this has no man but to lay down his life for his friends"... This means even unto death, but doesn't it also mean the actions of life and the relationships we establish, who we impact and who impacts us, in this life?
He went to the lost, the broken, the downtrodden, the forgotten, the different.
He did not forget.
In Heaven there are many mansions, but only one neighborhood-regardless of economics, race, tenure, denomination, nationality, or anything else.
Jesus draws us, considers us all the same in one most crucial regard: we all are in desperate need of a savior, the price is the same for each of us.
We are to love- God first and foremost, and then, those around us, each one and every one, who comprise our neighbors, brothers, sisters, friends.
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