3/19

Luke 19:10

¹⁰"For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."

The throngs in Jericho were excited to see Jesus. Even a tax collector was desperate to see Him. Behaving in a way that others would have seen as quite undignified, the short-in-stature tax collector Zacchaeus climbed a tree to get a look at Jesus as He passed by. Jesus stopped under the tree and called Zacchaeus to come down. Jesus went to Zacchaeus' house for a meal. The crowd grumbled about Jesus going to eat with a sinner. After all, this tax collector worked for Rome. He was a compromiser and associated with Gentiles. How could Jesus go eat with such a man?

Zacchaeus was so moved by Jesus' willingness to associate with him that he promised to give half of his possessions to the poor and restore fourfold any money he had fraudulently taken from others. Jesus said salvation had come to Zacchaeus' home that day and declared him to be a son of Abraham. That means Zacchaeus became a person of faith, as Abraham is the father of the faithful (Romans 4:16).

God seems to delight in choosing those for whom we would have little hope. The apostle Paul, once a killer of Christians, comes to mind. In one of the worst prisons in the world today, Angola penitentiary, God is transforming ruthless gang members into evangelists. Does God choose them because it shows His mighty power to transform the human heart, or is it because they recognize how desperately they need a Savior? Perhaps it is to show us that no one has fallen so far that the grace of God cannot transform that person into a servant of the most High God.

Consider: Are there people with whom you come in contact that you think are too lost to ever turn to God? Perhaps you think that you have been too wicked to become God's servant. We are all hopelessly lost without Jesus. He can transform anyone who receives Him joyfully, just like Zacchaeus did.