You Are What You Eat?
LENT 2022 | DAY 9
Matthew 9 (NIV)
(Chan Chee Choon Chuck, Zone 6 Leader, Small Group Ministry)
READ:
Matthew 9, focusing on verses 9-17 (NIV)
OBSERVE:
I know someone in my office who, having a ‘bad’ cholesterol health condition, prepares a meal of rolled oats and cut fruits daily in the office pantry for lunch. When the other colleagues see him preparing his meal, they would always say: ‘Wah… you very healthy eh!’. With a grin on his face, the colleague will usually give a cryptic reply: ‘Aiyah… It’s not the healthy who need to eat healthily, but those who are unhealthy mah!’.ah!’.
Matthew 9:9-17 records Jesus calling Matthew the tax collector to follow Him. In the evening, Matthew invited Jesus and His disciples for dinner at his house together with many tax collectors and ‘sinners’. The Pharisees, always seeking to find any ‘mis-step’ in Jesus, asked Jesus’ disciples why their Teacher was eating with a group of social outcasts in Israel’s society. This was followed by the disciples of John the Baptist questioning why Jesus and His disciples did not practise fasting, unlike the Pharisees and John’s disciples.
Jesus’ reply to their questions was equally cryptic.
When He said that it is the sick that need a doctor and that He came to call the sinners (v 12,13), who was Jesus referring to that are the sick and the sinners? Do the Pharisees qualify to be spiritual ‘doctors’ when they refused to associate with the ‘sick’? By saying that He desires mercy more than sacrifice (v13), Jesus was revealing the self-righteous and self-centred hearts of the Pharisees. He further explained that fasting is a response to a sorrowful occasion (v15) and not meant to be a legalistic observance or a hypocritical demonstration of piousness (Matthew 6:1). In saying that new wine should be poured into new wineskins (v17), Jesus came to do away with the pharisaical practices and burdens put up by the Pharisees to reveal the true nature in God’s kingdom through His acts of love and mercy (Matthew 5:3-12).
APPLY:
In this season of Lent, may I emulate the compassionate Christ Who fulfilled the Law (Matthew 5:17-20) to reach out to the least, the last and the lost.
DO:
Live out the love of Christ by showing and demonstrating His love and compassion to those around me.
PRAY:
Father God, I seek to act and do in faith what You have impressed on my heart. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
