Praise The Lord, I Saw The Light!

Jesus can do the same for us today. We do not have to ask him to save us-he does so willingly. All we have to do is accept his message in faith, repent and accept him as our Saviour. Jesus will take care of the rest.

As I mentioned a moment ago, Jesus is on a search and rescue mission. He is on a mission to seek and save the lost, but some of the lost do not want him to find them. They choose not to respond to his life of obedience and his sacrifice on the cross. Indeed, many of them laugh at his resurrection and his efforts to save their souls from sin, the devil and death. Zacchaeus might not have known that he was lost, but when he was found, he accepted his rescue. We are the same. Do we know we are lost? Do we want to be found? If so, will we accept Christ’s rescue and help him rescue more lost souls? As an old preacher once said, “If a man has a soul, and he has, and if that soul can be won or lost for eternity, and it can, then the most important thing in the world is to bring a man to Jesus Christ.”

The story of Zacchaeus is a metaphor for the mission of Jesus-received by the outcast, condemned by the authorities-and the murmuring followed him all the way to Jerusalem. We must follow God and start inviting ourselves and go out into the world and seek out others-just like Jesus and Zacchaeus sought each other out. If we are to be as Christ to others, whether we are leaders, teachers or lay persons, we, too, need to be aware of people’s pressing needs and seek, in Christ’s name, to minister to those needs. There is little point in preaching the gospel to homeless, hungry people without trying to first feed them and find them shelter. There’s little point of telling hurting lonely, disappointed people that God loves them if we do little or nothing to help them meet their present needs. In other words, we must practice what we preach. Jesus ministered to Zacchaeus’ spiritual needs. It is up to us to minister to the physical and spiritual needs of those around us.