Daily devotion – rejected by some accepted by One!
Mark 2: 13 Then He went out again by the sea; and all the multitude came to Him, and He taught them. 14 As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him.
(Matt. 9:9–13; Luke 5:27–32 )
Jesus choice of disciples would not be followed by any major corporation today. But God’s choice is the only thing that really counts in our lives. We worry so foolishly what people think about us and we go out of our way to be accepted.
In the Kingdom of God we are accepted one way, through Jesus Christ’s death and Resurrection and nothing else!
Jesus choosing to call Matthew or Levi, to be one of His disciples would have caused a ‘brain freeze’ in so many of the people living in Capernaum. For all the people in Capernaum, Levi was the most unacceptable to be one of Christ’s disciples!
Jesus sought out the man that no one else wanted, the one everyone else wished would fall under the immediate judgment of God – for he was a tax collector working for the Romans against his own people.
But this was to become one of the trademarks of Jesus ministry, as such notables as Mary Magdalene and many other nameless men and women would attest.
Jesus saw a man in Levi, not a category, and He knew what that man would become.
Many years ago in Florence, Italy, a huge marble block from the quarries of Carrara was delivered with the intention of the great sculptor Donatello to shape into a statue of an Old Testament prophet. But all Donatello saw in this massive block of marble were its flaws and he refused to work with it.
For quite some significant time the block just lay in the Cathedral yard. Until one day this piece of marble caught the attention of another sculptor. He could see beauty in this piece unlike Donatello, so for two years he worked on this piece of marble until finally on January 25, 1504 his work was done!
Great artists visited form everywhere to view this finished piece from a castaway block of marble. Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci and Pietro Perugino were some of onlookers.
As the veil dropped to the floor on the day of revealing the work, praise rang from all whose eyes feasted on this finished piece. It was a masterpiece of beauty and awe!
Michelangelo was the sculptor and the piece was the statue of David, one of the greatest works of art ever created.
Jesus saw in Levi what others did not, others saw a flawed man, Jesus saw an amazing disciple, who would write one of the most significant gospels in the Bible.
We each who have been chosen by God are to the world a rejected piece of stone worth nothing. But in the eyes of the Lord He sees us as His child, without spot or blemish!