Matt.9:10 – 13 – Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and began dining with Jesus and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?” But when Jesus heard this, He said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. Now go and learn what this means: ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, RATHER THAN SACRIFICE,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
I went to see the movie “The Jesus Revolution” recently, I was pretty blown away. I felt as if I was in a time tunnel, journeying back in time, back to the time when it all started for me. After all, I was fully immersed into the hippie counter culture in the 1960’s and 70’s. Part of the time watching this film I felt as if I was watching my own story being unfolded before my eyes. I was struck again at the way the Lord always gravitates to the least likely when He wants to do something to really shock the world. I guess that’s why He chose hippies to be the epicenter of what He did during the Jesus movement. When Jesus walked the earth He chose fisherman, prostitutes, and tax collectors; in the Jesus movement He worked with hippies, and today He still works with the outsiders and leftovers.
There is a group of people in every segment of society that have been passed over by the world. There is the African American world that has been passed over for hundreds of years, there are the illegals who are just trying to stay alive and survive, then there are the addicted that feel like they have come to their end and are trapped in a world of drug use and substance abuse. Just as it was in the days of the Jesus Revolution, these outcastes are the breeding ground of the move of God. The bad behavior that many people display that leads them to desperation and despair is really just a cry for help. Their soul is crying for God but they just don’t know that their heart yearns for God. Like the disillusioned Samaritan woman that Jesus reached out to their thirst for God was misplaced by drinking from the wrong well.
The world is ripe, like Jesus said, “the fields are white for the harvest”. All we need is a few laborers to go out into the fields.
Now go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion rather than sacrifice’ Thank you for capitalizing that sentence. It struck a forgotten memory of my pre-salvation shallow understanding of Jesus and God the Father. They were rule watchers in my mind, judges of behavior. Their presence was in the silence of a church building among the statues and candles. A form of false reverence for less than an hour on Saturday or Sunday and perhaps beads with a cross in your hand earned you the distinction of godly by the world standards. When His compassion was unveiled to me, it was a life changer. John 3:16 and our own testimony is more than enough to do the same in someone else, it’s the definition of compassion.
Amen!! Come Lord!!