“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.” One day some people said to Jesus, “John the Baptist’s disciples fast and pray regularly, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why are your disciples always eating and drinking?” Jesus responded, “Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.” Then Jesus gave them this illustration: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn’t even match the old garment. “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be stored in new wineskins. But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.””
Luke 5:27-39 NLT
Following Jesus is not the same as following our religious inclinations. Jesus always breaks our expectations—and he often breaks our human rules! Christ called a tax collector to be His disciple, went to a party with “sinners,” and did not command His disciples to fast (they later would). Jesus’ explanations are instructive. First, He had come to call the sick (and we are all sick). He cared for everyone, even those blind to their sickness, because God doesn’t divide the world up the way we do. Second, God’s way doesn’t fit into many of our religious rules. Jesus was willing to break human religious rules to follow the higher way of the Lord. If you are called to do this, make sure what you are doing is biblical, and be respectful.
Following Jesus will often mean that you won’t fit in with the religious people of the world. But God’s life will flow in you and through you to bless the world. This doesn’t mean that church is bad; in fact, church is a command for Christians to gather, worship, grow, and serve. But too often religious people isolate themselves and look down on others. This is a human tendency. Remind yourself constantly of the way of Jesus—live out mercy, walk with the least of the world, and reach out to outcasts. Follow His way, even if it means you won’t always fit in. Let His life flow through you.
How is the way of Jesus different than “religion”? Why is church so important to God? How can you be part of a church but not go the wrong route of religion?
