Tax Collectors, Sinners, and Agape Love

This week in our life groups we studied Luke 5.  The Pharisees were questioning Jesus because he was eating with the tax collectors and sinners.  Jesus replied to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.   I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”  The question was then posed to our life group "Who are the tax collectors and sinners in your life?"  And at first it seemed like an odd but easily answered question.  It seemed as if we might all need to just examine ourselves and then answer the question as if we were the ones who were the tax collectors and sinners.  And we are.  We must come before God with humility and recognize our own faults and our own sins and bring them before him.  We must also be willing to obey the gospel. 


 But what if we took that question for just one moment like Jesus did and looked around the world at the people we know and the people we don't know and searched earnestly for that one person in our life who we could make a difference with?  What if we prayed for God to send us that particular tax collector or sinner in our lives so that we could study with them, have lunch with them, change that tire on their car for them, buy groceries for them, give them a ride to the doctor, in some way minister to them.  What if that tax collector or sinner that he sent in our lives didn't fit the picture of what we thought "christianity" should be.  What if we had to get on our hands and knees and do some dirty work, get uncomfortable, show some agape love, to some hurting souls out there that need salvation?  What if?