Go and Learn

 

Hello dear Ones!

Have you ever learned something?  Of course you have! We all learn so much right soon after we are born—we learn if there is someone who loves us and responds to our cries for food or comfort or a diaper change.  Later we learn how to dress ourselves, tie our shoes, and hopefully how to read and write and do math and oh so much more! As adults, we learn how much we DON’T know when we have children—where IS that owner’s manual anyway? ;) We learn that grandchildren can be more fun than children, because we can spoil them and send them home and we also learn that it is important to keep learning new things in order to keep our minds sharp and our thinking clear! 

But this week’s verse was about a whole different type of learning.  Jesus said these words, after he called Matthew the tax collector to be His disciple.  Matthew responded immediately—and pretty much as soon as he did Jesus was criticized by the Pharisees for associating with sinners. After all, THEY would never do something like eat or hang out with a TAX COLLECTOR! It would make them unclean! Some of the sin might “rub off” on them. . . 

But they did not see through God’s eyes. What they looked at with disdain, God looked at with love and longing and as of great value.  What they saw as a sinner, God saw as His precious child who was searching and longing for Him.

How often do you and I look at the “outside?” Are we thinking we are better than someone else who has tattoos, who may dress differently than we do, or who has not achieved as high of an educational degree as we might have?  Or maybe we go to church but they don’t.  That makes us better—doesn’t it?  In man’s eyes it may, but remember that it is what God thinks that counts—and He sees clear through to the heart. It is nothing external that makes us “good,” but rather our love for God and through that our love for each other. Some of the kindest people I know have looked quite different from what I look like on the outside.  I sincerely hope my heart is as kind as theirs is. . . I pray that I will always see others through the eyes of their Father.  And I pray that others will also see me through my Father’s eyes.  But even if they don’t—that doesn’t make me any less valuable.

And it doesn’t make you any less valuable either. 

After all—Jesus calls me Friend.

And He calls you that as well.

Until next time,

Friend