Jesus is not sitting with sinners because our sins are harmless. He is sitting there because we need the mercy and healing of God. We can make promises. We can explain ourselves. We can hide it. We can dress it up. We can promise to do better. But we can no more fix ourselves than the bleeding woman could. There are places in our hearts that need more than improvement. They need the healing mercy of God in Christ Jesus—our Great Physician. Because Jesus does not come only for Matthew. Jesus comes for every place in us that is sick and tired and ashamed and afraid. He comes for the part of us that has done wrong. He comes for the part of us that has been wronged. He comes for the part of us that wants mercy. He comes for the part of us that refuses mercy. He comes and sits at the table beside us. And that changes everything.”
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Every day, voices around us tell us what deserves our fear… our focus… our devotion.
We live in a world filled with noise—
constantly demanding our attention and telling us where to look every hour of the day.
Look at what you lack.
Look at who is winning.
Look at who is failing.
Look at who to fear.
Look at who to blame.
But what we keep looking at… has the power to shape us.
If we spend our lives staring only at anger… we become angry.
If we stare only at fear… fear begins to rule us.
If we stare only at what is broken… despair slowly settles into the bones.
But we have the power to look up—
to see the heavens opened—
and Jesus standing before us…
claiming us…
strengthening us…
so that fear and violence don’t get the last word.
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“The Spirit is like the wind. It blows where it will. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes.” Faith, Jesus is saying, doesn’t always begin with certainty. Sometimes it begins the way wind begins — quietly, mysteriously, moving through places we didn’t expect.
I once knew someone who wandered into church almost by accident. She didn’t know the stories. She didn’t know the language of faith. She mostly stayed in the nursery and kept to herself. But slowly something began to happen. People listened to her. They welcomed her questions. They loved her without demanding that she prove anything first. And one day she said something remarkable. She said, “Somehow I’ve come to believe that God exists… and that God loves me.” Not because someone forced her. Not because she solved every theological question. But because she encountered grace. And that’s what Jesus is trying to tell Nicodemus.
God doesn’t wait for us to understand everything before loving us. God simply loves the world — the whole messy, complicated, questioning world. And when love like that finds us, something new begins.
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