Tag Archive: grace

Jesus Hangs with the Unlikely

God doesn’t always fit into our box.  Reality is much more complex and complicated than we would like to think it is.  We picture the kind of people that Jesus would like to hang around with and the kind of people He would choose to work with and then, the ones He actually chooses don’t fit our ideas.

In Matthew chapter 9, it says that Jesus saw a man sitting at the tax collector’s booth, named Matthew, and He said to him, “follow me.”  That doesn’t fit who we might expect Jesus to choose.  Matthew was a man working for the enemy.  He collected taxes for the Roman government, the oppressors of Israel. 

Matthew was also a man who liked to hang with the non-church crowd.  After Jesus told him to follow Him, He decided to have dinner with Matthew and some of his friends.  The church folk (the Pharisees) asked Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”

Isn’t it interesting that the church folk did not see themselves as sinners?  Aren’t you glad that Jesus does indeed choose to hang out with sinners?  His response to the church crowd was, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.  For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Our salvation is not obtained (and retained) by our actions or our deeds, but by mercy, because of the grace of God.  Those who are righteous do not need forgiveness and grace, but those who are sinners do.  We need to recognize that there is not one who is righteous on their own – we all need forgiveness and grace.  We all need doctor Jesus and His mercy.

Our prejudice against those different than us reveals something about our soul.

Scripture reference Matthew 9:9-13

Mercy Rather than Merit

I have recently had a few people half-sarcastically ask me if certain ‘sacrifices’ would get them into heaven.  They had to put up with difficult people and/or difficult situations.  Their comments were made out of frustration and part in jest, but they do reflect a common mindset.   “What must I do to obtain eternal life?”, with the emphasis on “do”.

Is there some minimum level of sacrifice, giving, or good deeds that will meet the criteria for entrance into heaven?  Obviously to get a reward such as heaven one must do sufficient good things to earn it.

Heaven cannot be obtained by merit, but by mercy.  Not in acts of mercy that we might perform to our fellow man.  That would be another form of giving or doing good deeds.  No, our acts of mercy cannot earn heaven for us.  Nothing can earn eternal life for us.

We all have failed to live up to God’s perfect moral law – even the best of humanity.  There must be an atonement for our failure.  God has acted in mercy toward us through the atonement of the suffering and sacrifice of His Son, Jesus.