Just Do It
Opening Prayer
Redeemer Lord, I praise You today for Your willing sacrifice that enables me to have this relationship with You.
Read LUKE 5:27-39
[27] After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, [28] and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. [29] Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. [30] But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” [31] Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. [32] I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” [33] They said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.” [34] Jesus answered, “Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? [35] But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.” [36] He told them this parable: “No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. [37] And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. [38] No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. [39] And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, ‘The old is better.'” Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of International Bible Society.
Reflect
Why did Jesus eat with Levi and what offended the Pharisees?There’s no way of knowing the thoughts in the tax collector’s mind as he “got up” and “left everything,” but Luke did not write this Gospel casually. The message is clear: at the words “follow me,” this tax collector responded without hesitation to a calling he simply had to answer.
It is worth noting that, unlike most of the disciples, Levi had plenty to lose. For simple fishermen like James and John, there might have been a chance of returning to their boats if Jesus turned out not to be the genuine article. Levi “burned his bridges” when he trusted Jesus and walked away from his tax booth. He stepped from a financially rewarding position into a completely unknown future.
The parables of the old and new garments and wineskins give us a picture of the sort of choice Jesus expects his followers to make. For Levi, there was no option to patch up his old life with Jesus’ help or to apply new teachings to the old routines. He throws a party, which was not what the Pharisees, John’s disciples, or we might have expected.
Apply
Are there “bridges” in your life that you need to burn in order to follow Jesus more fully?
Closing prayer
Pray that God will show you some new way of living your life in Jesus’ name and will enable you to live them out.
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