Mon.s’ Devo - Zacchaeus

Read Luke 19:1-10 Jesus is passing through Jericho and the crowds were filling the streets to see him. A rich man named Zacchaeus wanted to see him but he was very short and couldn’t see above everyone’s heads. He decided to climb a sycamore treed to be able to see. The Holy Spirit told Jesus about him and when he got to the tree he looked up and called him by name. He told him he was coming to his house to stay. The people complained that he was choosing to go eat with a sinner when they should have been awed that he knew he was in the tree and called him by name. By Jesus singling out Zacchaeus and giving him notice, it changed his heart. He wanted to totally change his life and give to the poor and right all his wrongs. Jesus saw this for what it was - repentance. He told him that salvation had come to his house. Jesus told the people that this was his mission. He came to search out the sinner and save them. True repentance is not just asking Jesus to come into your heart it is allowing the Holy Spirit to take over your heart and cleanse it. Salvation begins a process of sanctification where you truly become a new creature. Old things and old desires are passed away and new desires replace them. The test of true repentance is the desire to want to change. Our new man hates sin and loves righteousness so we have to train ourselves to walk in the new man’s desires instead of the old man’s. Lord, may we always be glad when a sinner comes into the kingdom and may we choose today to walk in our new man. Jesus gave them a parable to explain God’s timing about his kingdom coming to earth.