LUKE 9:10-11 – “On their return the apostles told him all that they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida. When the crowds learned it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who had need of healing.”
THEME OF THE DAY: THE WELCOMING HEART OF JESUS. It will be the most important truth we embrace if our desire is to live a confident and joy-filled walk with the Lord Jesus. It will also be the chief area of attack by the devil. This “it” is how we view the Lord Jesus – Is He a loving Savior who always handles us with loving care and never wavering in His kindness towards us? Or Is He a rigid and demanding God who is quick to judge us for our many failings and often impatient with our many failings?
Now not a single Christian would be so quick to embrace the latter and wrong description of our Lord Jesus. Yet, do we not feel the fiery darts of doubt of His patient love when we sin against Him? In the all too frequent times we are not the obedient sheep of His pasture we should be, are we not tempted to see the Good Shepherd as a harsh shepherd bringing His rod down upon us, not a rod of tough loving correction but of punishment? We would not for a second acknowledge we do so on purpose. No, this is the work of the crafty and powerful devil who seeks to make us think of Jesus not as the gentle and kind Shepherd correcting us for good, but a stern, demanding, and difficult leader of sheep who is intolerant of misbehavior.
In the daily warfare of the Christian, a significant battle we face is keeping the right perspective of the Lord Jesus; the right perspective found in today’s scripture with how He treats the crowds following Him – “He welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who had need of healing”. Here is the heart of the Lord Jesus. He welcomes people. Those hurting people knowing they need a touch from Him never encountered rejection, but acceptance. He came to heal. He came to save. He came to show love. He came to say, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). Jesus says to all, “Welcome. I won’t reject you.”
Dane Ortlund, in his book Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners, captured this welcoming love of Jesus wonderfully . . . “Whether the wreckage of your life is your own doing or someone else’s, you who are in Christ have never stepped outside the cascading waterfall of divine love. God would have to un-God Himself for that deluge to run dry. You have muted your experience of His love. But you cannot stop the flow any more than a single pebble can slow Victoria Falls, a mile across and 360 feet high, as those millions of gallons of the Zambezi River come crashing over the cliffs there in southern Zambia. Whether you have ignored it, neglected it, squandered it, misunderstood it, or hardened yourself to it—the Lord Jesus Christ approaches you today not with arms crossed but with arms open, the very position in which He hung on the cross.”
Such a welcoming and loving Savior we have! Don’t doubt it. Rejoice and enjoy it!
PRAYER: Lord, I praise You for Your condescending love and approachability allowing me to come to You.
REFLECTION: Jesus never refuses a seeking soul wanting to be near Him for forgiveness and fellowship.