The calling of Levi
Luke 5:27-32 NASB
²⁷After that He went out and noticed a tax collector named Levi sitting in the tax booth, and He said to him, “Follow Me.” ²⁸And he left everything behind, and got up and began to follow Him.
²⁹And Levi gave a big reception for Him in his house; and there was a great crowd of tax collectors and other people who were reclining at the table with them.
³⁰The Pharisees and their scribes began grumbling at His disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?”
³¹And Jesus answered and said to them, “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. ³²I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
Devotional
No one knows to how many people the Lord Jesus said, “Follow Me!” (In fact, through the Bible He is still saying it today, to you as well), but we know it from Levi, and how he responded to Jesus’ call. “And he left everything and followed Him.”
It seems contrary to what the next line says: “And Levi made a great feast for Him in his house.” If he has left everything behind, how can he still have a house of his own?!
How grateful we can be that this verse is following it, because it makes it clear what “leaving everything behind” really means.
It means: letting go of everything, not being attached to it anymore.
Didn’t Jesus say that it will be very difficult for the rich to enter God’s Kingdom!
The older we get, the more we become attached to what we have acquired materially. We become more and more stuck in certain thought systems.
Leaving everything behind and following Jesus is something that is only possible if we have lost faith in our own achievements, because trusting in Him has proved much more meaningful.
We do not know whether Jesus had met Levi before, but when Levi heard Jesus say, “Follow Me!”, he immediately threw his own future plans overboard, and placed his future completely in the hands of Him Who called him.
That is essentially conversion: giving up confidence in one’s own insights and ideals in order to do what He says in complete surrender to Jesus.
But that does not mean that everything entrusted to us in this world has become inferior or worthless; we are just not tied to it anymore and would like to make it available for the coming of God’s Kingdom.
Twitter: @SchoemakerHarry
Website 1: https://devotionals.harryschoemaker.nl
Website 2: http://bijbelplaatjes.nl
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