Luke 5:27-32 NLT 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.”

God sent His only son Jesus to Earth for primary purpose: to give us new life. In Luke 5:27-32, Jesus rewords His mission this way: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repent." Christ came so sinners like you and I could have new life through our repentance and His forgiveness. Our lives are forever changed when we repent and seek His forgiveness. Christ's mission is also our mission. We are called to not minister to the righteous, but rather to those who are lost and in need of forgiveness. If you have sincerely repented of your sins and God has forgiven you of those sins, then you have a story to tell to those who need repentance. Your life change can create the same change in the life another. Who do you know that needs to repent and receive God's forgiveness? How can your story of God's forgiveness help someone else come to repentance? BrotherBGD#2 Renewed 2013