Life's Pro-Am

"Somebody should do this."  I said.  "That somebody is you!"  the "professional" replied.  I felt there was a need for a new approach to prayer for our missionaries.  I'd mentioned it to this third "professional" because the first two had failed to accept the task.  This is when I learned that when I say  "somebody needs to..." three times that somebody is me.  But that's not my point this morning.

I felt the need for more prayer for others but I was not a prayer warrior.  I was an amateur.  An amateur who knew the basic technique but hadn't taken the time or made the effort to perfect the ability to become a "professional."

In Mark 2:13-17, Jesus interacts with some "professional spirituals."  Along a lake, while Jesus was teaching a  large crowd, he saw Levi sitting at the tax collector table.  Jesus told Levi to follow Him and Levi got up and followed Him.  (I noticed Jesus told him not asked him.  But that's not my point this morning.)

Later Jesus had dinner at Levi's house with many tax collectors and "sinners."  The teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw Him there with those  people.   So they asked His disciples why He would eat with tax collectors and "sinners".  (Notice their tactic to breed dissent among Jesus' disciples, rather than asking Him.  But that is not my point this morning.)

Jesus heard them and replied "It's not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick and I have not come to call the righteous but the sinners."  This is when I noticed that the previous mention of sinners had quotation marks.  I thought that "righteous" should have the quotation marks.  When I retell this passage I'm using air quotes because these teachers and self proclaimed righteous missed Jesus' point about sin and right standing.

 Professionals put in time and effort to be the best. A professional is good, very, very good because of their commitment to excel.  Yet there  is a danger to being a professional.  One might attribute success to their effort and then miss the joy of the blessing, the gift and the unmerited favor.  The spiritual professionals, the teachers of the law who deemed themselves "righteous", were missing the point of Jesus' mission, the gift of grace.  No longer will we strive to follow rules to be deemed "righteous".  That standing cannot earned and is not deserved because we are all sinners, forever amateurs.  We know what it takes to be righteous but it's just not in our nature to follow through.  We can't succeed because we are selfish by nature.  No matter  how hard we work to be a "professional" in spiritual matters we will never succeed to become perfect.

 I am proud to be an amateur because I know My Professional has given me my freedom.  My freedom from a life of being a professional failure.  No matter how hard I work to be perfect, I will never achieve it. I know my righteousness is a gift,  paid with a very expensive price by Jesus Himself.

 Thanks to the love and mercy of Jesus, Who provided the avenue of grace, we can be called righteous, not because we have worked to become a spiritual professional but because we are amateurs who need to admit our amateur status and acknowledge the only Professional and follow Him when He tells us.  (OK, maybe that second not my point this morning is one of my points!)