Something I hear often when sharing the gospel, is the response:
“I’ll go to church when I get my life together.”
Or,
“After I clean myself up, then I’ll go to Jesus.”
These responses stem from a belief that Jesus won’t be near those who are too messy.
Too broken.
Not clean enough.
Or pure enough.
It breaks my heart to know that there are hearts that are afraid to come to Jesus because they don’t feel acceptable to Him.
My heartache is still nothing compared to the agony in God’s heart, when He hears those words.
Maybe that’s you….
Feeling sincerely that Jesus doesn’t want you because you’re not a church-goer.
Perhaps you’ve considered that God would be in your story if you were less damaged, more clean… doing all the things you think you need to do in order to be viewed as a Christian.
I’m here to tell you that you have the wrong good news.
Unfortunately, the Church has displayed the gospel in a way that makes people believe that God needs us to be good before He can love us.
That couldn’t be more further from the truth.
”For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.“
Romans 5:6-8 NKJV.
Do you want to see proof that Jesus comes to us in our weakness…
In our darkness…
In our mess?
There is a historical event captured in the Bible, which proves that we don’t need to strengthen our weakness before Jesus comes to us… He comes to us right where we are!
Here it is!
In Luke 19:1-10…
”Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully. But when they saw it, they all complained, saying, “He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.” Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”“
Luke 19:1-10 NKJV.
Let’s digest this passage of scripture!
First, let’s address the elephant in the room…
or shall I say… The mouse in the room.
Zacchaeus was short.
We know that he saw this as a weakness because he climbed a tree to compensate for his height.
Thus weakness, he felt was keeping him from Jesus…
So he just tried to compensate for that part of him that he was seeing as his weakness.
But look at what the scripture says about Jesus…
“He was going to pass that way…”
“Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him.”
Jesus was already on his way to meet Zacchaeus!
He was heading through the crowd right towards where Zacchaeus was standing.
Zacchaeus didn’t need to be taller to be noticed by Jesus or to meet Jesus.
Jesus saw him, right where he was;
even with the weakness Zacchaeus had!
He thought his weakness, (his height) was gonna make it impossible for him to meet Jesus, or for Jesus to notice him…
But Jesus knew he was there, He saw him and was already headed straight towards him!
I never noticed that until now!
I thought this scripture meant we ought to try harder to seek Jesus…
It made me believe that I need to strengthen my weakness and clean my mess before I can come to Jesus.
This scripture actually shows us that our weaknesses can’t keep us from Jesus!
For Zacchaeus it was his height but for us it could be our other insecurities; our sin, our fears, the things about ourselves that we feel that we need to fix in order for Jesus to come close to us…
We don’t need to fix it before Jesus sees us;
He sees us in our weakness and meets us there!
Zacchaeus then tries to tell Jesus all the great things he does!
He tries to prove himself good enough to be in Jesus’ presence.
Jesus swiftly reminds him that salvation is given to him, not because of his good deeds, but because Jesus came to save those who need saving.
”When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
Matthew 9:12-13 NKJV.
Jesus then asked Zacchaeus to come back down!
In other words…
Don’t give Jesus that fake, filtered, Sunday-best version of you!
Zacchaeus actually made himself farther from Jesus when he tried to be taller and be what he thought he had to be to reach the view of Jesus.
All the while, he just had to be still and Jesus would have just met him standing right where he was!
So many people feel like they will go to God when they get themselves cleaned up…
but Jesus isn’t waiting until we get strong in our weaknesses to meet us;
He died while we were still in our weakness, to meet with us!
That is what Jesus showed in this moment…
We don’t need to clean up first, He came to help us with that mess!
We can’t clean anything up without Him!
He comes to you just as you are…
That’s what He died for!
He died to give us life eternally with Him!
God is not afraid of your weaknesses,
Nor is He dismayed by your brokenness…
He loves you!
He’s ready to meet you…
right where you are.
”And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.“.
II Corinthians 12:9-10 NKJV.
Photo by Arthur Brognoli
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
