Have you ever written someone off before they said a word? Levi’s reputation often caused people to do that to him. In Mark 2, he sat at his tax booth, labeled a cheater, a traitor, a sinner. Then Jesus walked up and said, “Follow me.” Not “clean yourself up first.” Just, “Follow me.”
That night, Jesus ate at Levi’s table with his friends. The religious leaders were scandalized. Jesus answered, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners,” (v17). Beloved, it’s the diseased, dirty, the dead, who need Jesus the most, yet they are the ones we often ignore.
Who is the Levi in your life, the one you already judged unworthy? Jesus saw a man worth calling, not a man worth avoiding. And thank God He didn’t overlook him because we know Levi better as Matthew, the disciple who would go on to write one of the most treasured books of the Bible, the Gospel according to Matthew.
May we be careful to overlook no one because everyone needs Jesus and can be used mightily by God. Change begins in you!
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