When he finished that talk, a Pharisee asked him to dinner. He entered his house and sat right down at the table. The Pharisee was shocked and somewhat offended when he saw that Jesus didn’t wash up before the meal. But the Master said to him, “I know you Pharisees burnish the surface of your cups and plates so they sparkle in the sun, but I also know your insides are maggoty with greed and secret evil. Stupid Pharisees! Didn’t the One who made the outside also make the inside? Turn both your pockets and your hearts inside out and give generously to the poor; then your lives will be clean, not just your dishes and your hands.
Luke 11:37-41 (MSG)
The Pharisee, as soon as Jesus is at his house, begins a malicious inspection, trying to find something that can justify killing Jesus, and the Pharisee found his opportunity when Jesus did not ceremonially wash his hands before the meal.
This hand washing, a man-made rule by the Pharisees, served to help the Pharisees separate themselves from the common person. The Pharisees had developed detailed rules and regulations, concerning everything from the exact amount of water to be used, what vessels the water would be poured from, how they were to pour the water from the vessels, and more. However, they were not commanded by Levitical law to follow such practices.
The Pharisee noticed that Jesus did not wash His hands, and while the Pharisee did not express anything verbally, Jesus sees his heart. This explains why Jesus accepted the invitation in the first place. It was not because He thought that the Pharisee wanted to make a conversion. Jesus knew that it was an invitation to be on display. Jesus wanted to be there to say more about how twisted the Pharisees were.
In a moment of spiritual clairvoyance, Jesus speaks to the heart of the Pharisee. Here, Jesus puts emphasis on the inside of our spiritual lives. Following Jesus is not for the shaping of our outside devotion to God. Following Jesus is for washing and cleansing the inside of our hearts.
Spirituality is not about having a sparkling and perfect outside. Spirituality is about making sure that the inner content of our lives is clean and purified by a devoted engagement with the one who can transform our minds. Just as Jesus later taught, “It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man. Matthew 15:11 (NASB).” Jesus is clearly focusing on the value of inside, spiritual transformation.
We see this because everyone around us is forced to live an exterior-focused life; meanwhile, they are being eaten by the maggots in their hearts. We all know the temptation of focusing on the external, while we neglect what is important on the inside. However, Jesus teaches us that power doesn’t come from the outside.
We can’t find meaning, happiness, or fulfillment from the outside. They are the result of a heart and will that has been conditioned by a relationship with Jesus Christ. We can have a strong soul when we have strong devotion to the God of our salvation.
Whatever you want to do, whatever you want to be, whatever you want to experience, you will only find true meaning if you are cleaned inside by the life-changing work of Jesus Christ, which means we have to make our spiritual life an inside project.
Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.
He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?”
“No,” they answered.
He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.
Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards. When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.
Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.
John 21:1-14
After three years of walking and talking with Jesus and witnessing His miracles, how do the disciples not recognize Him? It’s not until He performs a miracle that the disciples understand who He is. However, the disciples would have never known that it was Jesus unless they had done what He had asked.
Over the course of their journey with Christ, the disciples developed a habit of obedience that keeps them positioned to receive divine revelation. In order for us to stay in position for God to maximize our lives, we can’t just be obedient one time.
Just like the disciples, we need to learn to regularly practice obedience. This is because some of what God provides for us will not be immediate. Just like Peter had to go out of his way to cast his nets on the other side of the boat, we might also have to go out of our way in obedience to receive what God has for us.
Even in his confusion, Peter chose to obey. Like Peter, we need to stay with it. When we know what is right, we need to keep on nurturing it, and we need to stay anchored in radical obedience.
When we stay in radical obedience, we gain the reward of eating with Christ. We receive His care and love for us and His provision. Jesus appeared to the disciples to lift them out of their disappointment and to provide them unspeakable joy, which was so great that Peter couldn’t wait for the boat to get to shore.
Jesus doesn’t criticize, judge, or correct the disciples for not recognizing Him. Instead, He accepts the disciples and cooks and provides a meal. Jesus is so invested in your spiritual life, that He takes time to catch some fish for you, grill it, and eat with you.
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.
Revelation 3:20 NIV
The thought of Jesus waiting at the door of our hearts, knocking and waiting to be let in, is spiritually breathtaking. The Lord and our Creator loves us so much that He approaches our closed space and instead of barging in, respects us enough to knock and waits at the door of our hearts.
This is all the strength of the Gospel brought to the doorstep of every human heart. Jesus doesn’t wait for us to seek and search for Him, and despite living lukewarm lives, Jesus comes knocking.
Jesus is never far off. He is always close enough that if you are listening and looking, you can hear and see that He is at your door. Even if you hesitate, Jesus is willing to knock again and again, waiting for you to open the door.
While one part of this verse is the stunning extension of grace and love, there is also the image of Jesus as a wandering seeker who only wants to be let in, even if it is to a half, cold-hearted life. If the door is open, He will come in, sit, and sup with us.
Jesus’ desire is to dine with us. He doesn’t come in to judge or correct or condemn us. He comes in to eat with us. However, it may be that the door to our hearts are locked from the inside, because we have set no table for Grace to stop by unannounced. It is one thing to get your house in order when Jesus tells you that He’s coming. It is another to always be prepared for His knock at the door of our hearts.
We must be ready to set a table in our hearts.
The door to our hearts does not have a lock or latch from the outside, but only from the inside. We are the ones who open the doors to our hearts. So, to be prepared to unlock the door for Christ, we must be faithful in our prayers, disciplines, and what we allow to occupy our time and our minds. These things reflect our truest intentions.
Faith helps us to respond to Jesus’ knock and voice by grabbing our intentions from the inside and deciding what we let pass through the door to our hearts. Faith opens the door to Jesus because what He brings always adds meaning and power to our lives.
If you struggle to open the door to Christ, ask yourself these questions:
What in this season has been your posture from the inside when you hear the knock of Jesus at the door of your heart?
How have you handled the unannounced knock at your door?
When he knocks, what has been your resistance?
Is it that you don’t really want to have a different perspective?
Are you afraid that when the Lord makes His way through that door that He will change you?
Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
Matthew 9:10-13 NKJV
When the Pharisees saw what the dinner at Matthew’s house looked like, they immediately judged the quality of the people present. The Pharisees had spiritually written off these “tax collectors and sinners.” The Pharisees focused on the people that Jesus was eating with, but Jesus was focused on how He could impact those around Him.
For us, our relationships can drain us, leave us angry, or cause us stress. This mindset can be a trap. Instead of focusing on the negative aspects of our relationships, we should remember that our relationships are ministry opportunities. We can keep ourselves in check by asking ourselves, “Have I been my best spiritual self? Have I demonstrated enough Jesus for them to want Him?”
There are more than seven billion people on this earth, and God has specifically chosen everyone that is in our lives, even those that we wish weren’t in it. It’s easy to think that life would be great if we could trade in those around us for new and improved people. However, this is the wrong mindset. We shouldn’t think of our relationships as one-for-one exchanges.
For some of our relationships, we’re never going to get anything back. That person will never say “thank you,” they will never take us out to dinner, and they will never invite us on vacation. Despite all of this, God put them in our lives and has given us gifts so that they can see Jesus through us.
When we look at our relationships as ministry, they won’t stress us out, and we won’t carry unrealistic expectations.
Our placement and purpose are defined by our connections and the people around us. We can find our purpose, placement, and ministry by discerning God’s intentional connections in our lives. We are not connected to anyone by accident. Our purpose is to transfer the Jesus in us to those around us.
Our connections define our placements and priorities. Just like Jesus, when we find ourselves placed among tax collectors and sinners, our priority ought to be to heal those who are sick and bring about mercy.
“For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by all her children.” Luke 7:33-35
Meeting and knowing Jesus is to bring celebration into our lives. We did not accept Jesus into our lives just to be able to cope with misery. Instead, Christ brings us joy and abundant life. In Christ we have true freedom.
To live in this joy, we must not allow criticism from others to stop us from walking in our faith. The Pharisees in the passage above brought criticism to both John the Baptist and Jesus. John was called demon possessed, and Christ was called a glutton.
John the Baptist and Jesus, however, did not let this criticism interfere with their missions. It is important that we, too, do not allow criticism to stop us from living the faith that God has for us.
Faith is not God saving us from hurt, it is God granting us favor we don’t deserve to come out on the other side of that hurt. In our faith, we must persist even when persisting is hard. We must trust in God that our trials are for our benefit. When we are being criticized, made fun of, or insulted for our faith in God, we must keep walking in our faith.
Walking in our faith also helps us to grow. We cannot look to our church, family, or friends to solve our problems for us. When we persist in our faith and continue to walk in it, that is where the true joy of the Lord is found–even if things don’t always work out.
Even when doors aren’t opening and our lives are hard, we cannot stop following Christ. We must continue in our faith, always moving forward. We are not always going to get our way, but God is still a good God and a faithful provider. As long as we are continuing on, even if we are bleeding out, we can rejoice in the fact that God is sustaining us in our trials.
Because of our relationship with Jesus, we are stronger than the things that life is hitting us with because “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4 KJV). Christ is in us, so we are strong, and obligated to be strong, in the Lord.
When life comes against you and the criticisms, hurt, and trials of this world show their teeth, say to yourself: “I am stronger.”
