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I am using readings from the 49 Week Bible Challenge as the basis for these devotions. I encourage you to join me in this discipline. Today’s readings are Luke 19; Numbers 5; 2 Samuel 12; 1 Chronicles 27; Psalm 137.
Luke 19:1-10
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. 7 And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” 9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
I have recently been in conversation with a very worried mom. Her son is checking out of Christianity. He says that he isn’t an atheist, but warned her that he might go there. He might, he told her, go down the dark atheism hole. Thankfully they are still talking, and he is engaging with her respectfully. I suspect he may be triggered by outside influences to dismiss the visible church, religious formalism, and what he sees to be so much hypocrisy among religious people.
She is very afraid. She fears that the enemy – Satan – has gotten ahold of her son. And she knows what he wants to do with him.
Contrast that with Jesus’ ministry to the likes of Zacchaeus and the sinners and other tax collectors he encountered. In fact, Jesus reserved his harshest criticism for the religious leaders. Their long tassels, large philactories, lengthy prayers, and outward show of religion were of no value before God.
But how was it that people like Zacchaeus got not only Jesus’ attention, but even his praise?!? Jesus invites himself to Zacchaeus’ house. Then he says that salvation had come to Zacchaeus’ house. Jesus calls him a Son of Abraham. What gives here?
Faith gives Zacchaeus a new outlook on life. He suddenly and dramatically gives away his possessions to the poor, refunds all that he had defrauded and more, and makes all that known. This kind of behavior is not forced. He didn’t do it because he had to in order to be saved. He did it because salvation had come to his house. He did it because faith took ahold of him.
I hope and pray that the Holy Spirit will lead this young man back to Jesus—the One who welcomes the outcast, calls the sinner, and still walks into the homes of those others might write off. Even now, Jesus sees him, just as he saw Zacchaeus. And faith, when it comes, will not be coerced or manufactured. It will come as a gift, bringing new life, a new heart, and a new story—one marked by grace, not fear.
David Bahn - Reflections 
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