This is my "Portrait of a Disciple" presentation of Zaccheus, one of Jesus' disciples:
I was a totally different person back then. Before I knew Jesus, before I knew his love…yeah, I was a pretty bad guy. Back then, everyone knew who I was. You could have called me “Mister Rich and
Famous.” But, I wasn’t famous for any
particularly GOOD reason…in fact I probably could have been described as
INFAMOUS.
Ok, my
name’s Zaccheus. Before Jesus came into
my life, I was a chief tax collector in Jericho. AKA, I was an important guy. I oversaw an entire division of tax collectors
– they reported back to ME. NOTHING went
down that I didn’t know about.
Now this is what you need to get –
tax collectors weren’t really loved back in my day. While there might have been a few honest
ones, we generally ripped people off…ok, straight up cheated them. How you say?
Well, I was kind of like a…a SALESMAN, yeah…my paycheck came from
commission. So basically, if I didn’t
charge a little extra money, it’d be hard for me to pay for the essential
things in life…like my yacht and 7-car-garage house. So, if someone owed a certain bit of
money…I’d charge a little extra on top of that.
Now ok, I know this sounds bad, but
before I met Jesus, before his love changed my life, I didn’t really feel bad
about that sort of thing.
But yeah, it was a Tuesday I
believe…someone said Jesus was passing through Jericho. Now I had heard of Him before, but I had
never saw Him up close. I was trying to
keep it a secret…but I REALLY wanted to meet Him! I don’t know what it was, but just hearing
how He talked to the rejects of society, that He loved them for absolutely NO
good reason…I was drawn to Him. I mean, how could you love someone who didn’t
deserve it? And, something ELSE I kept
secret…I HATED who I was. Yeah sure,
they money was nice, but I just couldn’t live with myself any more. But I felt like I was stuck. There was nothing I could DO about it. I was too deep. Too far-gone.
Well anyway I heard He was
coming. If you haven’t noticed already,
I’m a little bit on the shorter side (I don’t like to talk about that). But I knew that even if I went near Jesus,
there was no way I could have seen above the crowd.
So I decided to get to higher
ground…and by that I mean climb a tree.
I don’t know if that’s normal thing for you guys, but people didn’t
really do that back then. But hey, I
figured, people are already going to see me there, so why not get a good
view. I mean I REALLY wanted to see Jesus!
When He was
passing through, I was so excited! As I
was trying to make sense of the whole situation, He looked up at me in the tree
and said, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.”
MY
house!! My house?? He was coming to
MY house! I had no idea why He picked
me, but I got down and brought Him over.
(And how the heck did He know my name?)
I was dishonest. I was a
jerk. Heck, I straight up ROBBED
people. But Jesus decided to eat with
me!
When He was
over my house, He was talking, and He had His other disciples there, but it all
became a blur…it was like one of those out of body experiences, and I just felt
something overflowing out of my chest. Like,
my heart was growing warmer inside…and I knew what I had to do.
I said it
right there. I think they were laughing
about something when I said it, but I just blurted it out. I confessed, “Lord, I will give half of my
possessions to the poor, and if I have robbed anyone anything, I will give back
four times as much.” I’m telling you,
when I finally verbalized that, wow, it felt like a weight was lifted off my
shoulders.
And Jesus,
He had this look on Him…like He already knew I was going to say, and was just
waiting for me to do it.
He told me
that today, salvation had come to my house.
He said that I was a Son of Abraham, even though I cheated all those
people! His love had completely transformed who I
was, and I was forever changed.
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