March 11, 2026

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Him. With Him were His disciples. There were many who followed Him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw Him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked His disciples: ‘Why does He eat with tax collectors and sinners?‘ On hearing this, Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’”

(Mark 2.15-17)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Yesterday, I reflected upon the greatest words ever spoken: “Son, your sins are forgiven!” Those words of Jesus in response to the paralyzed man who was delivered in faith to Him by four friends speak to the real essence and meaning of “inclusion.” We all have needs to be included and to feel a part of something. It drives us to make decisions to accommodate the attention and decisions of others to let us be a part of “them” as a family, a community, an organization or any kind of relationship. Those decisions are not always healthy physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. We can make a list of “addictions,” a long list, and see them as solutions to the inclusion/exclusion problem. There is only one decision that is needed to know what it means to be truly, authentically and eternally included. Confess our sins, seek God’s forgiveness and step again onto the path of righteousness. It is the decision to admit that we have lost our grip on holiness and goodness. We may have grasped it too loosely and let it slip away. We may have grasped it too tightly and squeezed the life right out of the opportunity to be truly free. We may have coddled it so that we are in touch but not truly connected and grew distant from it. No matter which “hold” we had, somehow we just “lost it.” There is something inside of us which longs for it, yearns for it and wants it back. We may have forgotten we ever had it thinking we never did. But we did have it for a moment at least. The battle between spiritual nature and human nature is ongoing. The only person who actually found the balance and quieted the battle was Jesus. Only in Him and through Him are we able to have that balance and resolve the angst of inclusion.

The story of the rich young ruler is a good example of what I am presenting. His question, “What must I do to have eternal life?” is a question about inclusion. As he did his pre-inventory before meeting Jesus, he must have felt that he was lacking something. To everyone else, he must have appeared to be one who had it all together: riches, houses, clothes, friends, successful business, influence and recognition. What they couldn’t see behind all the elements used to be included was a probing search for meaning, purpose and ultimate reward. All the things of the world he possessed could not satisfy the longing for eternity. It may have been a pursuit of misunderstanding about eternal life that weighed on his mind. For some Jewish thinkers, eternal life was the succeeding generations. A person would live on through the lives of their successors. Successors maintained their connection to the preceding generations and consider the legacy which was now theirs. They would consider success as passing on a “good” future to their children, grandchildren and so on. For other Jewish thinkers, eternal life was not so much personal but more concrete as in buildings, writings, charities and statuary. It was the sense of being remembered which drove their decisions of what their life would be and do. There were others who did consider eternal life as exactly that- living beyond the point of bodily death. What that life looked like varied but the reality was basically the same. And this rich young ruler had a need to know what actually made for eternal life. Of course, he struggled with the answer that was given. Jesus said, “Sell all that you have and give it to the poor; then come, follow Me.” The man walked away sorrowful because he was very rich. What price does eternal life come from? What price to be included in the life of eternity? The disciples would ask, “How is it possible to be saved if even a rich man is not capable?” The answer, of course, was “What is impossible with people is totally possible with God.” The search for inclusion is never really about, no matter how much we want to believe it, people and things of this world. Real inclusion is about being a child of God dependent fully on Him, trusting fully in Him and walking daily with Him in spirit and in truth.

What Jesus did that day was to pave the way, making it straight for others to get to God, by emphasizing what really includes us. It is holiness and righteousness made possible through God’s forgiveness, mercy and grace. The paralyzed man wouldn’t need to be healed to be included. He needed only to know that his eternal life, dwelling in the Kingdom of God on earth and in Heaven, was not worldly defined nor bound. It wasn’t about riches or poverty. It wasn’t about health or sickness. It wasn’t about power or weakness. It wasn’t about flowing robes or dirty rags. It wasn’t about palaces or hovels. It was about getting right with God, being right with God and staying right with God. The first two may actually be within our wheelhouse. We know how to ask for forgiveness and we know “the rules of righteousness.” We know the expected behavior and right thinking. It is the staying part that seems to trip most of us up. That staying part began to look like works righteousness. We turned works into inclusive achievements as if “If I do enough of this or that, I will be acceptable.” Such conditional thinking and acting, some may call it conditional love, is not the answer. Staying right with God requires humility, honesty and the desire to keep doing what is right and good in the sight of God. It does not mean perfect. It does mean seeking perfection which can only happen by the power of God. This is where the rest of the story is heard. Let’s reflect on that tomorrow. Until then, shalom, y’all.

TODAY’S PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.