Press the arrow to listen to Steven Curtis Chapman sing “Yours” as you read today’s devotion.

Scripture
There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich. He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way.  When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today.”  Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. But the people were displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled.  Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!”  Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.” Luke 19:2-9

Observation
Importance is what we all long for, especially people like Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was clever enough to compensate for his shortness. Taller people had brushed him off, so it was no problem for him to rip them off.  He would become rich, if by extortion and he would be looked up to if it was with stolen riches. But no matter how high the stilts of success Zacchaeus strutted on, he never felt tall enough.

News had come to him through the Fraternal Order of Tax Collectors of the kindness of Jesus to their profession. When Jesus came to visit his town, Zacchaeus just had to see this kind Rabbi for himself. But in the crowd Zacchaeus felt again the painful truth that he just didn’t measure up. No one liked the little pest. No matter how much money he had he could neither grow taller nor beg his way to the front line.  So Zacchaeus went out on a limb. He reached higher than he had ever done in his life. We’re supposed to laugh at the picture of an IRS man sitting in a tree in a blue, pin-striped suit with his wing-tipped Oxfords dangling over the branch.

Jesus offered Zacchaeus the gift of significance. The Master picked one face out of the crowd and asked to go out to lunch with him. For the first time in his life, someone important wanted Zacchaeus’ home and not just his tax office. That gift of recognition gave Zacchaeus space to repent. The desire for repentance had been in Zacchaeus’ heart, but it was Jesus’ kind notice of a disliked man that made it possible.

Application
There are many people I pass by in a given day who have climbed trees at the extremity of their desire to be important. To most they seem off putting. By being ignored their sin problem only grows worse. But the choice to acknowledge and to include them may be the very thing to change their hearts. Often those who seem to have things together, really don’t. They are waiting for someone to be genuine with them. Acceptance will bring them out of their tree of self-importance and bring them to level ground.

Prayer
Father, as I read this story, I reflect that Jesus works the same today. He ignored the crowd to help one person who everyone else had written off. Help me to have peripheral vision like Jesus to see Zacchaeus in a tree beside the road. Help me to go out on a limb to rescue them from self-importance with including love. Amen.