Scripture Reading: Luke 5:27-32
Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. Luke 5:27
The call to follow Jesus is much more than an invitation to follow Jesus from a safe distance and casually observe him. Jesus didn’t say to Levi, “Follow me and you might learn a few things”. Jesus called Levi to follow him AND be his disciple. To be his disciple is a radical, life-changing decision. To be his disciple is to completely open your heart to His desires for your life. To be his disciple is to walk with Jesus every day, listening, learning, and allowing the Holy Spirit to change you to into His likeness!
Levi knew what it would mean to follow Jesus. He had been watching Jesus. He knew Jesus was a righteous man, admired by the people, a powerful rabbi who healed the sick and performed miracles. He knew Jesus reputation and what Jesus stood for. But how could someone like Jesus have anything to do with him? Levi was just not Jesus material. He was a greedy, corrupt government official who got rich by extorting money from his own people! He was so despised by his fellow Jews that he, and his kind, were not even allowed into the Synagogue (according to history). There was no chance that Jesus would want someone like him.
But something shocking happened – against all odds Jesus called Levi to be His disciple. The scripture says, “So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him”. Wow! What just happened here? What happened is that the love of Christ invaded the heart of a broken and spiritually hungry man, and filled his soul in a way that nothing and no one else ever had.
In our way of thinking, Jesus had it backwards. Shouldn’t he be looking for a solid, upright, religious type to be his disciple? But we’re the ones who have it backwards. The call to follow Jesus is not for those who think they have their act together. The call to follow Jesus is for those who know they are spiritually bankrupt, and recognize the real thing when they see it.
Spiritual pride will lead us to religion, but not to Jesus Christ. No one can be a disciple of Jesus without genuine spiritual humility before God and man. Jesus said, “I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.” Luke 5:32 Jesus came down really hard on the religious leaders, but the truth is, it had nothing to do with their pious zeal. They simply could not tolerate being called sinners. There is no greater or more deceptive sin than spiritual pride and this is what Jesus condemned. It is the sin that caused Satan to fall and the sin that separated us from God.
Discipleship demands that we grow spiritually - it does not allow us to stay in our sin. Real disciples will grow and become more like Jesus. Just look at Levi. He became Matthew, one of the twelve and a completely different man. But I’ll bet that Mathew never forgot who he used to be. Spiritual maturity produces an increased awareness of our own sinfulness. To be fully aware of our own sinfulness is to be fully aware of the grace, love and mercy of God that calls us to follow him, and changes us to be more like him!
© 2011 David Soper. Scriptures from New Living Translation
