scum

Luke 5

27 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.

28 So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him.

  29 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.

30 But the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law complained bitterly to Jesus' disciples,

"Why do you eat and drink with such scum?"

  31 Jesus answered them,

"Healthy people don't need a doctor—sick people do.

32 I have come to call not those who think they are righteous,

but those who know they are sinners and need to repent."

We don't need to be like the Pharisees, separating ourselves from people who aren't followers of Jesus.

We need to be like Jesus, who was all about connecting with anyone.

Where would you & I be if the people who influenced us to follow Jesus had been more like the Pharisees, & not like Jesus?

The world is dying for lack of a connection with Jesus – I see them every day.

All we have to do is show them we care – just like the people who led us to Jesus.