None of us likes to hang out with difficult, objectionable, toxic people. Yet some days, it seems like you're surrounded by them. And every fibre of your being screams, "I have to get away from them." You know that feeling, right?
Now sure, you can find yourself in a destructive relationship – a narcissistic boss, an abusive marriage partner – where you just have to get out of there to protect yourself. Absolutely.
Yet short of those extremes, it's all too easy to shun people because you just don't like them; because you find what they believe, say or do, objectionable. Okay, but if you, a good person, shun them, if you don't hang in there with them, how will they ever discover the joy and the freedom that godly goodness brings?
On one occasion, Jesus decided to have dinner with a bunch of sinners – tax collectors, thieves, extortionists.
Matthew 9:11-13 The Pharisees saw that Jesus was eating with these people. They asked his followers, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and other sinners?" Jesus heard them say this. So he said to them, "It is the sick people who need a doctor, not those who are healthy. You need to go and learn what this Scripture means: 'I don't want animal sacrifices; I want you to show kindness to people.' I did not come to invite good people. I came to invite sinners."
Jesus' dinner with those sinners wasn't a case of first century virtue signalling. It was an act of radical, unmerited grace. Who are the sinners in your life who need that sort of grace? And if not through you … then who?
That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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