We all know how to promote the fact that we are “saved by Christ”, “we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Saviour”. But how many of us show it? The Bible gives accounts of many people who met with Jesus. Their next step was to follow Him. My brother, my sister, following Jesus is not only a branding name or an expression of your church attendance. Why? Because you can follow only someone you hav…e met or seen or that you know… you can’t just say you are following someone ‘in theory’ and think you are. Many of us are following people on social media, while we don’t know them and we know absolutely nothing about them, except for what they post (and that even is disputable, because we don’t always check or read their posts).
Today’s passage says this: “After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them”.
My friend, Levi left a lucrative, though probably dishonest tax-collecting business to follow Jesus. Then he responded as Jesus would want all His followers to do: he held a banquet for his fellow tax collectors and other notorious ‘sinners’ so they could meet Jesus too. My friend, how many of your friends and family have you ever invited to share Jesus with them? How many of them have you invited to share a meal, go out, speak nonsense or gossip about others? Yes, the truth has to be told: here Levi, who left behind a material fortune in order to gain a spiritual fortune, was so proud to be associated with Jesus, that he could not hide Him from his fellow tax collectors. Many people want the Lord Jesus to use them to go and make disciples around the world while they are incapable of gathering people right in front of them to spread the Good News. When we truly FOLLOW Christ, we share Him, we spread His Good News by gathering meetings around us. Let’s stop justifying ourselves or finding excuses: we can imagine how it could have been difficult for Levi to gather rich influential thieves in his city around Jesus… but he did it, certainly because he was bold for the Lord! Sometimes, we do and say things without measuring our selfish or coward attitude that we even try to justify: in a year, how many times have your house been shared as a place to welcome Jesus? The same house you are asking Him to bless every single day… Stay blessed in Jesus’ name.