MARCH 8, 2013
Jesus’
Team
Read: Luke 5:27-35
He . . . saw a tax
collector named Levi . . . . And He said to him,
“Follow Me.” —Luke 5:27
In
2002 the Oakland Athletics built a winning baseball team in an unorthodox
way.
They had lost three top players after 2001, and the team didn’t have
money to
sign any stars. So Oakland’s general manager, Billy Beane, used
some
often-neglected statistics to assemble a group of lesser-known players
either
“past their prime” or seen by other teams as not skilled enough. That
ragtag
team ran off a 20-game winning streak on the way to winning their
division and
103 games.
This
reminds me a little of the way Jesus put together His “team” of disciples.
He
included rough Galilean fishermen, a zealot, and even a despised tax
collector
named Levi (Matthew). This reminds me that “God has chosen the
weak things of
the world to put to shame the things which are mighty”
(1 Cor. 1:27). God used
those dedicated men (minus Judas) to ignite a
movement that affected the world
so dramatically it has never been the same.
There’s
a lesson here for us. Sometimes we seek out the familiar, the influential,
and
the rich. And we tend to ignore people with less status or those with
physical
limitations.
Jesus
put some of society’s less desirable people on His team—treating everyone
the
same. With the Spirit’s power and guidance, we too can honor all people
equally.
In Jesus Christ we all are equal,
For God’s Spirit makes us one;
As we give each other honor,
We give glory to His Son. —Fitzhugh
There are no unimportant people in the body of Christ.
Source:
Our Daily Bread 2012
