When his brother went to prison, Wally (from The Wally Show) felt embarrassment and anger. But God showed Wally that there was more than just one messed up person in this equation – but Jesus could redeem both.
Read (from the New Living Translation)
You’re messed up. I’m messed up. But that means Jesus came for you and for me. You get a taste of that in today’s reading.
Luke 5:27-32
Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him.
Later, Levi held a banquet in his home with Jesus as the guest of honor. Many of Levi’s fellow tax collectors and other guests also ate with them. But the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law complained bitterly to Jesus’ disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with such scum?”
Jesus answered them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.”
For many years, I thought the way to earn love was to never screw up. By the time I was in my 30s, I was depressed and anxious all the time. It took me the next 25 years to undo most of the damage to myself that thinking I had to be perfect did to me. It is so freeing to admit & be ok with not being perfect. Jesus loves me not because I do things right or wrong but because He made me & loves all of me. Learning to love myself that way is an on going… Read more »
God can use our messes when we give them to him. It took me so long to learn that I didn’t have to clean up to come to Him.
Thank you for sharing about your brother. My husband is in prison and I could relate to some of what you shared. He’s an amazing follower of Christ who likely wouldn’t be here today if he hadn’t gone to prison where he could confront what he was doing and learn there was another way.