Get in the Game

As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.

While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Mark 2:14–17

I’m an engineer by trade and I have a tendency to over analyze and complicate things. In the above excerpt, Jesus didn’t give a whole lot of theology or philosophy, just a simple message to follow him. In other words, we are to do what He does, stand for what He stands for, and follow what He says. That is where all of us should be in life. In 1 John we read “This is love for God: to obey His commands. And His commands are not burdensome.” Jesus doesn’t ask us to watch Him, but to obey Him. How many of us have turned into spectators when it comes to Christianity; watching, rather than obeying? If you were a hockey player and practiced all week long but didn’t get to play one shift, would that be okay with you? If you have any competitive juice in you, you want to be out there making a difference. So why do we play Christianity that way? We go to church, attend Bible studies, read books, but are we in the game making a difference and reaching the lost?

God wants you in the game! He doesn’t want you riding the bench. You are a key player and important to the team. The beautiful thing is that you get to decide if that is something you want to do. You can get in the game right now if you want to, you can do something about it today! What if the ticket to church this weekend was that you had impacted the life of a lost person during the week to bring them closer to a relationship with Jesus Christ? How empty would our churches be on Sunday? As the 4th of July just recently passed, I was reminded that there is going to be a light show before the throne of God one day (Rev 4:2-5), and how important it is that we are getting people ready for that show. If you’ve read the news recently, you might have noticed that we are continuing to lose our freedom here in America. Who knows how much longer until we are not free to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ in public. But remember that you are always free in Jesus Christ. Make sure He has set you free and that you use that freedom correctly.