Forever Home in the Eternal Family of God

Daily Encouragement for the Family of God by Kenton Cheek

30 March 2025

Luke 5:17-39

“After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

—Luke 5:27-31

     Jesus lived a perfect life and yet He was willing to spend time with tax collectors and sinners.  These were people not accepted by “respectable” members of Jewish society in His day.  This did not stop Him from loving them.  As my pastor once remarked, “Jesus loves us enough to meet us where we are but He loves us too much to leave us there.” 

     The grace and mercy extended to those who reach out to Him in faith and trust is transformative.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, He turns us into new creatures created in Christ Jesus to do good works and be His hands and feet upon the Earth.  We are made Christ’s ambassadors, given the privilege and pleasure of extending to everyone around us His Gospel, the Good News of His grace we have experienced.  The Pharisees professed to be God’s people, but if we truly believe and receive salvation, we are possessors of His Spirit and we gladly share Him with those who are suffering. 

     We are not to condemn others.  We all struggle with different things in our lives and if we want the Lord to extend grace and mercy to us, we need to be willing to extend that to others.  This means treating others with kindness and understanding rather than judgment.  We are to judge the difference between right and wrong based upon the principles laid out in the Scriptures and the illumination of the Holy Spirit, but it is not up to us to judge people in our present reality.  That is up to the only true and righteous Judge, Jesus Christ.

“Heavenly Father, may we not be hoarders of the blessings You have graciously poured out upon us.  Open our eyes to the pain and suffering around us.  Help us to use the tools You’ve given us in Your Word the Bible at the loving guidance of Your Holy Spirit to share Your love and message of reconciliation with everyone, no matter their background, ethnicity, culture, gender or socioeconomic status.  Thank You for Your love.  In the Name of Jesus Christ I pray these things, Amen.”

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

—II Corinthians 5:16-21