Look for the Good in All
Matthew 9:11-13 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
When someone is treating you badly, and you want to write them off because they’re just too much trouble and they’re more than you can cope with right now, I want to encourage you to try something radical. Are you ready?
Try looking for the good in them. Because let me tell you, no matter how badly someone is behaving, deep down, there’s always some good in them. That’s exactly what Jesus did, when He went to dine with sinners and tax collectors at Matthew’s house.
When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” (Matthew 9:11-13)
Where others saw only sin, Jesus saw something worth redeeming. Jesus knew that if only these sinners, these social rejects, could experience the love of God firsthand, then the good in them would come to the surface.
So often the people who behave badly, do so, because they’ve never experienced unconditional love in their lives. No one has ever stepped into their lives looking for the good in them and helped them to rediscover that good that they thought had been lost forever.
I am here with you today, because when I was one of those bad people, some of those who called themselves Christians stepped into my life, as Jesus did in the lives of these tax collectors and sinners, and believed that somewhere, deep down inside me, hidden though it may have been to their sight, there was some good in me worth redeeming.
All too often, we approach people like those tax collectors and those sinners, with the attitude of, “what’s in it for me?”
“How will they treat me? What will I experience? Will they hurt me … again? What will other people say about me?” It’s always with the me, me, me thing, have you noticed?
And yet Jesus had no thought whatsoever about what was in it for Him. The religious leaders, the religious powerbrokers of the day, the ultra conservative, legalistic, rule-based Pharisees, they criticised Him. Why does He mix with all these undesirables?
Because I came to heal the sick, said Jesus. Because I came for them. Because these sinners are made in the very image of God and I am here to show them mercy.
We can go to church, we can sing the songs, we can hear the sermons, we can pat ourselves on the back. But let me tell you, unless and until we look for the good in the sinner, we’re just kidding ourselves.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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