And as he passed by, he saw Levi…sitting at the tax booth,
and he said to him, “Follow me.” Mark 2:14
What if yesterday’s headline announced that Jesus had arrived and would hold auditions for America’s Next Top Disciple? Before dawn, the limos of TV preachers clog the streets, convents and monasteries empty, and every kid with a semester of Bible college slept on the sidewalk last night so he could be first in line. But the doors to the theater stay closed until a manager pokes his head out and says, “Sorry, folks. We got ahead of ourselves. Turns out Jesus isn’t following standard protocol. Oh, and just so you all know, disciples don’t get paid anything and they must be prepared to die in the line of duty. But if you’re still interested, I heard that Jesus was spotted under an overpass choosing disciples from among the homeless.”
The inner recoil
we might feel is exactly the way the religious people felt when Jesus did the
same thing 2000 years ago. He didn’t wait for people to come to Him; He went
after them. But He bypassed the temple in favor of the docks and the tax
collector booths. He knew liars and thieves would never seek Him, they would
assume He had come for the righteous people. So He sought them. He paid no
attention to the LOSER medallions around their necks. Instead, He saw them for
what they would be once they knew Him. And He offered to journey with them in
becoming who they were created to be.
Great leaders are those who show others what they can become
once they
meet Jesus.
.
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