"But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”-1 Samuel 16:7 How often are we guilty of considering the outward appearances? There are some who are concerned with what people wear to church on Sunday, some who care about who we help, who we evangelize to, and who we are seen with, some who care about who sees their actions (or who doesn't), and any number of other scenarios where what is seen by others, or perception of others is the key to their faith. This isn't one of those "jesus wouldn't be at church on Sunday" messages (Jesus would be, by the way, He was obedient to the Father, unto death), but we'd still see Him having dinner after with tax collectors and sinners of all sorts. All too often, we forget that Jesus wasn't about the "healthy," He was about the "sick."
Sometimes we can be more about the healthy, than the sick. We look at outward appearances without considering the eternal sickness that, apart from Jesus, consumes us all. It wasn't the "religious" that Jesus appealed to, but the outsiders, the Samaritans, the prostitutes, the irreligious, and all sorts of what we would call "fringe" people and outsiders. The religious utterly rejected Jesus, because the Messiah they wanted, the one they had built up in their minds as overthrowing Israel and returning Israel to its rightful place, wasn't the one they received, and Jesus IS the Messianic King that Scripture proclaimed. Sometimes we act as the religious elite of Jesus' day did. If we want to be reflected, and hold His name Highly, than should we not search the scriptures to imitate Him? It starts, then, with obedience to the Father, and ends with how we love all, including the least of these. Anything more or less makes it about us. Luke 15:1-7 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
So he told them this parable: “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance."
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