Jesus, the God Who Loves & Rescues You! 5 Day Reading PlanShembull

DAY 2

JESUS loves you and rescues you when tempted to do wrong.

Pray

Dear Jesus, I am grateful for your constant care of me. I know I can always turn to you for encouragement and support whenever I need it. Keep me from wrong desires. Be my vision, Lord, so I can clearly see the path I need to follow. Amen.

Read

Luke 19:1-10

Jesus went on into Jericho and was passing through. There was a chief tax collector there named Zacchaeus, who was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he was a little man and could not see Jesus because of the crowd. So he ran ahead of the crowd and climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus, who was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to that place, he looked up and said to Zacchaeus, “Hurry down, Zacchaeus, because I must stay in your house today.”

Zacchaeus hurried down and welcomed him with great joy. All the people who saw it started grumbling, “This man has gone as a guest to the home of a sinner!”

Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Listen, sir! I will give half my belongings to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone, I will pay back four times as much.”

Jesus said to him, “Salvation has come to this house today, for this man, also, is a descendant of Abraham. The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

John 6:37

Everyone whom my Father gives me will come to me. I will never turn away anyone who comes to me.

1 Timothy 6:10

For the love of money is a source of all kinds of evil. Some have been so eager to have it that they have wandered away from the faith and have broken their hearts with many sorrows.

Reflect

Sometimes our love for possessions clouds our vision and it becomes a stumbling block in our relationship with God. Yet, when we find ourselves in the light of Jesus’s presence, our perspective changes and we often seek to make adjustments. Our desire to do wrong is no longer attractive and we begin to allow Jesus to rearrange our priorities. Despite our shortcomings, Jesus wants to have an intimate relationship with us no matter what others think or say. He will rescue us when tempted to do wrong that put a wedge between us and him. Like Zacchaeus, we will experience “great joy” when we are in fellowship with Jesus once more. This joy radically changed Zacchaeus’s life and it will change yours, too, because the joy of the Lord gives us strength to overcome our battles.

Respond

Jesus knows everything about us. The Bible tells us that nothing we do is hidden from him. Jesus knows us so intimately that even the hairs on our heads have been counted. Did Jesus not know that Zacchaeus was a cheat when he chose to dine with him? Of course, Jesus knew. Yet, perhaps it was for precisely that reason, among others, that Jesus makes a point of spending time with him. Jesus does not label us as others do. He does not see us based on the photo that our past (or even our present) provides. He sees our potential—what we can become when we are rescued by his love. Jesus wants us to become fruitful and productive Christians, so he tells us, “I am the vine, and you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me.” John 15:5 When we acknowledge our dependence on Jesus, it frees us to experience joy which can only be achieved by accepting his love.