One of the many excuses people give for not coming to the Lord is the fact that they cannot leave their previous lifestyles to serve the Lord. Does the Lord desire His followers to abandon their lives and follow Him? This question is not difficult to answer. Imagine working in a brothel… after your conversion, no one expects you to go back to the brothel to work. However, if you are working within the corporate world, the marketplace or doing something legitimate, the Lord does not call you to abandon your life. In fact, you become a marketplace evangelist and you are able to share the love of God with the people around you. As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. (Mark 2:14) Levi also known as Matthew was a tax collector and though people working in the tax offices are highly esteemed in our day, in the time of Matthew, it was considered a “bad” choice of work. From Jesus’ Encounter with Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10), we can imagine the lifestyle of tax collectors. These Jewish “publicans” openly worked for the “oppressors” of their people and shamelessly added more pain by taking more than required. When Jesus arrived at the toll booth of Matthew, Jesus knew the kind of life Matthew was engaged in and the fact that Matthew is hated by his own people. Obviously Matthew would have been called a “bad guy”. The call of Matthew and many others in scripture shows the extent of God’s love. Many of us were not so special people, we did not have enough ‘goodness’, nor were we considered as ‘godly’ by the people around us. However, when Jesus arrived at the booth of our lives, He threw His arm around us and called us by name and told us to follow him. For some of us, our conversion might have been a ‘surprise’ to the people around us. We might have been ridiculed and avoided by even those in the faith. Yet, we have been called to follow the Master and that is exactly what we are doing. Matthew abandoned the tax booth and took on a new role. He became an apostle of the Lord. If you have been called to follow the Master, there are some lifestyles that need to be abandoned. Sometimes, letting go of these become difficult and some people tend to get dragged back into their sinful ways. If you know someone who is struggling to remain in Christ because of previous ties, please hold the person’s hand and assist through discipleship to get their feet grounded. Remember, when we are called to follow the Master, we cannot carry along anything that does not promote the Master’s call. The songwriter said… I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back The world behind me, the cross before me, no turning back
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