“…I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17b, NIV).

Last Sunday I looked to the choir loft of my local church and spotted a man whose father I knew when I served in Nigeria as a medical missionary. Today, I found my diary and located my account of his father:

“Don Frazier was headed to the post office in Kaduna. A tight-pantsed, pretty prostitute stepped out to greet him.

‘Do you want to sleep with me?’ she asked.

Don was stunned. He said, ‘No,’ and turned away. He thought about her as he approached his car, and he turned back to talk with her. As the young woman’s prostitute friends laughed (she did not), he told her about Jesus and got her address.

The next day he took his wife and visited her. The next week he visited again and she had gone. Don asked her fellow sex-workers about her. They told him she had returned home to her family.”

Is there anyone low enough, degraded enough, mean enough, repulsive enough, risky enough or broken enough that Jesus did not die for them?

Is there anyone good enough, educated enough, rich enough, handsome enough, popular enough that they can earn God’s eternal favor without the sacrificial blood of Christ?

No, and no.

Then why don’t I think that way?

Why don’t our local churches act that way?

Jesus gave His life for a woman with five husbands, for the thief on the cross, for a crooked tax-collector and for a woman stoned for adultery, with the same love that crucified His life for the rich young ruler and the religious elite who mocked Him as He hung on the cross.

Jesus said, “Follow me.”

Am I seeking the ones whom Jesus is calling me to pursue, or have I chosen to turn my own way and only seek more “worthy” sinners whose dirt will not rub off on me?

Dear Father,

Let me follow you to both the favored and the rejected, that all may find you and choose eternal life.

Amen