I had a friend recently move to Charleston. Her first week in South Carolina, she visited
a church which very generously gave her a t-shirt as a gift. She still wears it, though she ended up
joining a church with some deeper messages.
She suggested to her new pastor that he consider giving away
t-shirts, too. He joked that he didn’t
want some guy robbing a bank sporting their logo on his shirt.
Good point.
Fortunately, Jesus lets us all “wear his logo,” even though the very
best of us can only sully his image.
In Luke 19, Jesus walked into Jericho looking to save the
most disreputable character in the city.
Zacchaeus’ conversion raised such a stink that Jesus had to step in to
defend him. Having Zacchaeus as a friend made people
love Jesus less. Zacchaeus was that unpopular.
Well, that’s all of us.
Nobody is so good that Jesus says, “I’m glad we’ve got that guy in
church now. He’s bringing up the
averages.” We’re all an embarrassment to
Jesus. He's perfect and we're not.
But look what Zacchaeus did:
When he realized that he had become a serious liability to Jesus, he immediately
offered restitution. “Half my wealth I
give to the poor.” He did his best to
make things right.
(People are going to hate you anyway, since you’re a
Christian. Don’t sweat that. Satan
will bring people out of the woodwork to dislike you. You should wear that a little bit proudly – read John 15:20. I’m sure there were plenty of folks in the
crowd that were never satisfied with what Zacchaeus did to make things right.)
Application: When you
lose your cool at that restaurant with the terrible service – and you shouldn’t
lose your cool – go back in and apologize.
I've had to eat more than my share of crow over the years. When someone at work corrects you for something, be gracious. Be the first to make up when you have a
disagreement with your friends. And
yes, don’t rob a bank with a cross on your t-shirt.
You’ll never be perfect, but you can at least
make a valiant Zacchaeus effort.
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