“Those who are well have not need for physician, bout those who are sick…” Matthew 9:10-13 NKJV

Jesus was addressing the religious leaders of His day when He made this statement. In the church there are two types of people, Pharisees or Holiness people. The difference is the Pharisees are critical and always looking to fit people in their mold of acceptance, and Holiness people are striving to be like Jesus in mind, attitude, and heart.

The love of God was manifest in Jesus by the mere fact that Jesus sought out those who were able to acknowledge their sickness and need for a cure. The truth is that no one is righteous, no not even one (Romans 3:10 emphasis mine) therefore we are all in need of a cure and spiritual attention. Jesus was open to those who would come to Him and learn from Him and be changed and transformed into the likeness of our Father. (Matthew 11:29, 30). A good example of this was when Jesus called Matthew to follow Him (v.9). We know Matthew was no ordinary tax collector, but a chief tax collector. This carries the implication that not only was he good at collecting taxes but also efficient at seeing to his own needs by being unfair in his collections and stealing from those he collected from.

Jesus did not seek those who would fit a certain mold because it would be truly impossible for anyone to measure up to the Godly standard required to please God. Therefore He would have to do a work in each person who comes to Him. He would need to treat their spiritual infirmness just as a doctor would a person with physical infirmities. The work of Jesus is not merely rehabilitative but instead takes us to a more productive and improved person than we were when we went to Him.

In this passage Jesus is addressing two types of people, the Pharisees and the people who were not in the church. The undesirable, tax collectors, and the sinners are the ones who sat with Jesus. The thing to realize here is that the main difference between the Pharisees and the sinners was their heart. The Pharisees could not see the need in their life for help, and the sinners probably could not put their finger on it, were keenly aware that Jesus had something they needed, namely salvation.

From the stand point of addressing those outside of the church how are we doing? How are we doing addressing those who are in our church who are in reality family members? Are we both as individuals and as a corporate body addressing others as Jesus did in this passage or as the Pharisees were? This is the hard question. The truth is that no one really wants to address this or acknowledge the truth that we may not be doing as well as we would like to think we are. There is an elephant in the sanctuary and no one wants to admit it. It is time we called it out and killed the elephant once and for all and this is going to require that we all die in order to live. We have to die to this world and begin to live to Christ in that we must have His heart, mind, and attitude. (Philippians 2:1-30) We are going to have to pick up our cross and truly deny our self, our own beliefs, things we find titillating, and seek the illumination of Christ instead.

So what does this all mean? To be called Christians, true followers of Christ we have to realize that we have the gift in our hands and the knowledge of Christ, and it is our responsibility to share it with the world. In contrast what we (Christians) have done is we have put on our Pharisee hats and become judgmental and have tried to cram people into the mold we think they should fit based on our own standards. With regard to being a holiness person we are to welcome sinners, those that smoke and drink, the man who is beating his wife and kids, the woman who is dressing provocative, the foul mouthed, the sexually immoral, the liar, and the utterly undesirable and welcome them with the love of Jesus that is present in us through the indwelled presence of the Holy Spirit, and we are to bring them into the this hospital we call a church.

Remember the elephant I spoke of? Here is what the elephant looks like. We are not even able to treat each other with the love of Jesus. How then can we expect to love the world as Christ does if we cannot love and treat our own families both in the church and in our own homes the way Jesus loves us? We are going to have to get it right in our own homes before we can be truly effective out on the street. How dare us think we can invite people into our churches when we are in more of a position to do harm than good.

Now here is the encouraging thing, once we get it, the love of Christ that is, God is going to break out on us with that blessing the Bible talks about. You know the one, pressed down and running over. We are to not judge or condemn, we are to forgive the same as Christ forgave us, we are to give freely. (Luke 6: 37-38) It is no wonder the church is not growing the way God intends for it to, but once we can begin to share to love of Christ with the world we will see transformation into Christ likeness like we have never seen before in not only our own lives but the lives of the world also.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 18th, 2009 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Christ likeness, holiness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.