Dinner with a sinner

Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick......For I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners." Matthew 9:12. In this moment of  Jesus' mission, He and his disciples were eating with tax collectors and 'sinners'. This specific dinner apparently intrigued the Pharisees, as seen in their questioning. The life that Jesus lived allows us, as ordinary followers , to capture his nature- meditate on it, embrace it, reflect it and live it. So what can we reflect in this circumstance? We can acquire a lifestyle model of making eternal investments and discovering true evangelism of the gospel of Christ. Dinner with a sinner. All around us are people who need to know Jesus, desperately, and are truly missing hope, peace, salvation, worth, freedom, healing, etc. People all over the world need the real Jesus... the Jesus that ate with sinners, that shared His love by daily laying down his life and by pouring out all he had far beyond man-made barriers, traditions, and physical limitations. Sometimes knowing the amount of lost people, the great amount of people in nations who have never heard the gospel message or who are the least evangelized, seeing poverty stricken people, the hurt, wounded, broken, bound, addicts, or even those whose crutch is man-made traditions, is... well overwhelming. So with this overwhelming factor of the world, where do we start. Jesus left the 99 to go after the 1. We can begin by investing in the one(s) around us. When God puts something in your heart, it is very much alive, a heartbeat causes your body to respond. The heartbeat of God in a willing vessel will cause one thing: action. Sometimes it's so easy to get wrong ideas about how things are supposed to look like or how they are even supposed to function. For instance, sometimes in our ohhh so human minds, it's easy to think that the things of God have to be embellished with something of "our own" when in reality He ministers in power according to His will and normally a lot more simple but amazing than we expect. So, dinner with a sinner- One person at a time: Reaching out to the people around you, sharing the hope you have with another, displaying the life changing, unselfish, amazing, distinct Love of Christ.  Jesus reached out to me when I thought I was unreachable. His love met me at the place where I was a sinner and He embraced me there and my life changed. As you pray and know the heart of God, He reveals people around you that need Him. When God shows you this person, or people be their friend and build a relationship with them. Get to know them and follow God's lead with them. "Dinner with a sinner", or befriending an individual who needs Jesus will allow the nature of God to naturally flow through those who follow Him and the people who are being reached out to will see something different. That difference is of course Jesus. As a Christian, we are all called to live a life or mission. A mission of following God on the journey in daily obedience and seeing the world as He does will allow you to impact others and take part of the work He has started. The harvest isn't an event that will take place one day or in the future, the harvest is now for those who are willing to see it. One day at a time, one obedient act at a time, one individual coming to know Christ at a time... what a life to live, daily encountering God to know Him more and in return make Him known by pouring yourself out into those around you, and to wherever the journey leads you. Jesus truly saw the worth in each individual He encountered on His journey and He even knew the worth of every person ever created thus He gave all. By seeing with the eyes of God, we can see the worth in people we encounter, because underneath it all, each person has the value that is seen in the life and death of our one true Savior, Jesus. Worth shouldn't be questioned, when Jesus gave His life for all, so they may know Him. May the mission of God be branded on our hearts and sealed in our lives as we reach out those around us.