Luke 19- For I'm Going to Your House Today

Whenever I hear about Zacchaeus, I automatically think of the song I learned as a child:

Zacchaeus was a wee little man,
and a wee little man was he.
He climbed up in a sycamore tree
for the Lord he wanted to see.
And as the Savior passed that way,
He looked up in the tree.
And he said, "Zacchaeus, you come down,
for I'm going to your house today.

But that song only tells half the story- a short guy climbed a tree so he could see Jesus, and Jesus told him that he was coming to his house. But the account in Luke gives us the rest of the story. Zacchaeus was a rich tax collector. Tax collectors were notoriously disliked by the people- they were greedy and took more than they were entitled to. The people were upset that Jesus was going to a sinner's house. But in the end, Zacchaeus made some major changes: he told Jesus that he was going to give half of his goods to the poor, and that he was going to reimburse the people he had cheated- by four times the amount he had taken from them!

As I read this, it occurred to me that when Jesus comes to our house- when he enters into our personal lives- it changes us. Once we've experienced the love Jesus has for us, his unmerited grace for undeserving sinners like ourselves, we cannot remain the same. When Jesus comes to our house, it changes what we do, how we live, and how we treat other people. We want to live the kind of life he's called us to live, we want to set things right, we want to show love to others.

I thank God that he loved me enough to "come to my house," to come into my personal life even when I was far from deserving. I thank God for his love and grace, and I want nothing more than to show love and grace to others in everything I do.