Daily devotion – Friday 9th July 2021
Luk 5:32 “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
Jesus came to save sinners.
The message of the Bible is clear, the matter of salvation is also clear. It is a choice to be made, a choice that has eternal ramifications. And each and every one of us must make that decision.
Jesus said that it was the sick, not the well, who need the physician.
Jesus’ business reveals to you and I today what our business is to be as His Church. The Church is the only fellowship in the world where the one requirement for membership is the unworthiness of the candidate.
But Jesus did not come to leave the sick in their sickness. To leave the sinner in their sin.
Jesus called them to repentance!
When Jesus in the context of Luke 5:32, was speaking these words, His hearers were the religious leaders of the day. The Pharisees! But the Pharisees saw themselves as righteous and on their premises Jesus conduct was justified.
The Pharisees failure to become disciples is perhaps connected with the fact that repentance is not easy for the respectable and the self-righteous.
This coming Sunday morning, we gather to celebrate holy communion. We call it sometimes the Lord’s Supper.
But the only people who can participate in this sacrament are those who have repented of their sin and accepted the fact that Jesus Christ died for the payment of their sins.
Thus, it is also a table of Thanksgiving.
Are you a good person? Or do you realize that you are a sinner needing salvation?
Jesus came for one and not the other.
As a Church, let us reach the lost, let us follow Christ’s mission, and spend our energies on those for whom Christ died.
Let us be fishers of men, women and children who are desperately in search of God.
This is our mission!