Jesus ate with sinners because love eats with sinners. Self-righteousness cannot eat with sinners, justice refuses, and false piety runs the other way. This nearness of Jesus to sinners was not just something nice you could say about His ministry. This is a revelation of God. We have been told that the holiness of God is repelled by human sin; Jesus shows another view of holiness. He shows a view of holiness that sits down with sinners and the outcasts. Holiness is not diminished by its contact with sin or sinners. Holiness is meant to create hunger for health on the part of the sick; it is meant to create hunger for wholeness on the part of the broken. Practice Christlikeness. Oh, by the way, if your heart is not in it, it is not going to work.
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation” 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 (NIV).
