Someone recently wrote to me, in response to one of my chronicles. He was quite upset, and told me in no uncertain terms that I was proclaiming a false message by proclaiming the unconditional love of God. He insisted that man has to "do his part' in order to "qualify" for God's salvation. I've been thinking about it, and my thoughts were directed to Matthew 9:9-13, which captures a lovely glimpse of the gospel of grace.

“As Jesus was going down the road, he saw Matthew sitting at his tax-collection booth. "Come, be my disciple," Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him. That night Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to be his dinner guests, along with his fellow tax collectors and many other notorious sinners.
The Pharisees were indignant. "Why does your teacher eat with such scum?" they asked his disciples. When he heard this, Jesus replied, "Healthy people don't need a doctor-sick people do.”
Then he added, "Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: 'I want you to be merciful; I don't want your sacrifices.' For I have come to call sinners, not those who think they are already good enough.”

Here is a revelation as bright as the evening star: Jesus comes for sinners, for those as outcast as tax collectors and for those caught up in squalid choices and failed dreams. He comes for corporate executives, street people, superstars, farmers, hookers, addicts, SARS agents, AIDS victims, and even used car salesmen.

Jesus not only talks with these people, but dines with them - fully aware that His table fellowship with sinners will raise the eyebrows of religious bureaucrats who hold up the robes and insignia of authority to justify their condemnation of the truth and their rejection of the gospel of grace.

This passage should be read, reread, and memorized. Every Christian generation tries to dim the blinding brightness of its meaning because the gospel seems to good to be true. We think salvation belongs to the proper and the pious, to those who stand at a safe distance from the back alleys of life, clucking their judgments at those who have been soiled by life.

It is startling that the men and women who are truly filled with light are those who have gazed deeply into the darkness of their imperfect existence. I do not have to apply spiritual cosmetics to make myself presentable to God! I can accept ownership of my poverty and powerlessness and neediness.

C.S. Lewis said, "The good man is sorry for the sins which have increased his need. He is not entirely sorry for the fresh need they have produced."

So, to you ragamuffins, filled with regrets, and feeling unworthy to approach God, I say; "YOU are the very person Jesus came for. He not only came to talk to you, but to dine and fellowship with you. So draw near to Him with boldness, and soak a while in the glory of His love and grace."