Hunkered Down Devotion

Luke 19:1-10 (NIV)  
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”
8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Many of us are most familiar with the story of Zacchaeus because of the song that we likely learned as children about the ‘wee little man’ and the sycamore tree.  Since most of us are already aware of that, I want us to think about something else today.  

Today, I want us to focus on what I think is an often overlooked, but incredibly important message found in verse nine.  Jesus is sort of summarizing what has just happened in his interaction between himself and Zacchaeus and listen carefully to what he says: Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost’.

As Christians, particularly as American Christians, we rightly tend to put a lot of focus on our individual relationship with Jesus Christ and our individual actions.  They are, without question, incredibly important.  But we can’t miss what Jesus is saying here.  Our actions also have the power to affect others.

Jesus, in fact, spells it out quite clearly here: ‘Today salvation has come to this house’.  These words are not some fancy way of highlighting Zacchaeus’ salvation, rather they mean what they sound like they mean.  Further, they are not an isolated reference, but a pattern that runs throughout scripture, where repeated faithfulness of one or a few seem to be powerful and efficacious over others (see James 5:16; 1Corinthians 7:14).

So as I read this passage today, one question came to my mind – even as I hummed ‘Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he’.  And here is the question: Zacchaeus, through the bold action that he took, and the choices he made, brought salvation to his house on the day that he met Jesus.  What are you going to bring to your house with you, by the actions you take, the choices you make, the things you say and do this day?

Sharing God’s Love,
Chip  

Prayer:  Lord, help us to have the courage to seek you out and trust in your salvation for ourselves and for our households.  Amen.