“We will all be changed...” Years ago, I heard E. K. Bailey preach an imaginative sermon about Zacchaeus. He pictured Zacchaeus making his tax-collecting rounds in Jericho, and realizing that something had changed his town. Zacchaeus learned the something was a Someone. Everywhere he went people had changed dramatically. The blind man no longer begged at the entrance to the city. Then he ran right into the crowd following Jesus and climbed the tree to see the Lord. Jesus saw him, invited himself to Zacchaeus’s house for dinner, and changed his life.
How do we know if a person has really changed? We may ask with the prophet, “Can a leopard change its spots?” I am sometimes skeptical. Are you? But Zacchaeus’s story offers us hope. One day he was stealing from others by overcharging for their taxes. Then after dinner, he started giving money back to others. Someone may have wondered, “What happened to Zacchaeus?” Jesus. Jesus happened to Zacchaeus and changed him.
How do we know if salvation has come to our homes? Jesus changes us. My friend Robert Creech says about the story, “This is what a baby Christian does. He changes completely.” So when you hear someone justifying the behavior of another by saying, “Well he is just a baby Christian. We can’t expect him to act like Jesus,” remember Zacchaeus.
Jesus came looking to seek and to save the lost. Has he found us? Have we changed yet? Why not today?
