Devotionals

Good Religious Person or Needy Sinner?

by Cheryl Weber
04/18/16
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Jesus sat down to dine one day with tax collectors--men considered traitors by their own people. Not only did they collect taxes for the Roman government, but they extracted extra in order to pad their own wallets. They were attempting to satisfy their hungry hearts through their legal theivery. Then they met  the Savior. He shared a meal with them, demonstrating his acceptance instead of rejection, his willingness to redeem, rather than readiness to condemn.

Enter the Pharisees--Jewish religious leaders convinced of their own goodness and sure of God’s pleasure. Determined to remain seperate from “especially wicked sinners,” they cast scandalized glances towards Jesus’ dinner companions. How could the Rabbi who taught from the law with such authority, associate with such rabble?

Jesus saw straight into their hearts. “Healthy people don’t need a doctor,” he said. “Sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”(Mark 2:17 New Living Translation)

Blinded to their own spiritual poverty by deadly pride, these good religious people failed to understand that God himself, the greatest of all physicians, reclined before them. They missed the healing of their own withered souls, missed the fountain of living water full of grace and truth. They erected merciless walls of judgement even as true righteousness opened its arms and mercy triumphed.

Are we the good religious person, dedicated to impressing God with her own ragged goodness? Or do we remember we were once sinners, deserving of God’s judgment, now called to humbly embrace those in need of the same loving Savior who extended such mercy to us?

PRAYER:  Lord, help us to lay down our pride and self-righteousness, to love as you loved and to welcome hungry, thirsting souls who have recognized their desparate need of a Savior. AMEN.