Glad You're Here: A 5-Day Study by Craig Cooper and Walker HayesSample

If your view of Christianity is prudish and uptight, you may have the wrong Jesus in view. The real Jesus had some unruly dining habits.

You may not realize this, but Jesus’ first disciples were a ragtag crew. They were not from the polite corners of society, and they were not scriptural scholars. They included several fishermen, a tax collector, and an outspoken pessimist. They were ordinary, common men. They argued with each other often, but they were united by the desire to follow and learn from Jesus.

Jesus loved people so much that He was often accused of keeping questionable company (Luke 5:30). The accusations didn’t alter His actions though, as He kept welcoming sinners to dinner with Him. Jesus’ response to those allegations was classic: “Those who are well have no need for a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (vv. 31–32).

Jesus understood that a physician must get close enough to the sick to bring any healing. Jesus is the Great Physician. So, he isn’t concerned about external rules and regulations as much as He’s concerned with healing the sick and caring for the bruised and broken.

Jesus is on a mission of mercy. It wasn’t a chore for him to spend time with unbelievers; it was His delight.

Author Bob Goff wrote, “Most of us spend our entire lives avoiding the people Jesus spent His whole life engaging.” (Bob Goff (@bobgoff), Instagram photo, October 17, 2021, https://www.instagram.com/p/CVImHnuFAr-/).

Jesus wants us to engage with others in need of a Savior, not to avoid them.

When Christians fling their lives open wide, it’s amazing how people can sense the love of God in the open arms of the Savior. They may not be able to articulate it, and they may not even understand fully what God is doing in those moments, but there’s a sense of God that engulfs the living room, family life, and dining table of every open- armed believer in Christ.

As we’re standing in the kitchen doing dishes together after dinner or sitting in the living room lingering over another cup of coffee—Jesus is at work. If Christ is in every Christian, doesn’t it stand to reason that people will unwittingly encounter the life of Christ as we simply dine together?

Friendships are cultivated through genuine hospitality and time together. The presence of Christ can be felt through us wherever we are, whether in our own home, at a restaurant, a pub, or a baseball game. The location is not what matters; what matters is that we extend Jesus’ love and rest to anyone, everywhere we are in this restless world.

“For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:14–15, ESV)