I once was lost, but now...I'm found

Submitted by Izabella Bensing

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I'm an 18 year old homeschool senior :) I love sports, sunshine, yellow, beautiful words, my family and friends and Jesus. His radical love inspires me everyday. I'm only here because of Him <3 Oh, and my most favorite verse is 1 Peter 5:7 :))))))) One more thing! Jesus is obsessed with you. Live like it ;)

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Read: Luke 19: 1-10

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"Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” - Luke 19:9-10

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Hmm I wonder. Maybe Zacchaeus was thinking this: maybe, just maybe, he felt like he couldn’t measure up. He was physically short, but what if he felt spiritually too little? Like he couldn’t be good enough. It’s says he wanted to see who Jesus was. Maybe he had never met him before, but he heard the hype and knew he was pretty awesome. So let’s think with that mindset. He wanted to see Jesus. He wanted to be near Him and feel his presence. But he just couldn’t see. His vision was cloudy. His view was blocked by false ideas. So he decided to climb a tree where he could get a better view. A taller place where he was higher up. Somewhere that could make him feel better than he saw himself.

But then, something happened that threw off his plan. Jesus saw him and literally said, “...come down immediately.” Jesus could see right through him. And he wanted to see him where he really was at. Not where he maybe wished he was.

You see, Jesus isn’t scared away by the person we are-because he can see what we’ll become. Jesus didn’t want Zacchaeus to wait until he felt “good enough”. Because truthfully he was never going to get there.

Let’s look at what Jesus said to Zacchaeus at the end.

Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

Salvation came to him not because of anything he did, but because of what Jesus did. And because of what he does. He came to seek and save the lost. He went and sought out Zacchaeus. So he could save him. Because he was lost. He does the same thing with us. He seeks us out when we’re in our deepest valleys and brings us up to beautiful mountains. He comes to us when we're lost and He shows us that we're worth the fight. And He shows us that because of Him, we're able to fight. For good and for freedom and for justice and for love.

(Sidenote: I decided to look up the meaning of Zacchaeus. It comes from the Hebrew word "Zaccai". It means pure. How cool is that? Before Jesus, he wasn't pure. Neither are we. But Jesus can turn our lives around and make our hearts as white as snow (Psalm 51:7) )

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Prayer: Jesus, thank you so much for what You've done. You SAVE us. You meet us right where we are. You aren't afraid of who we are at any given minute. You can see who we're becoming and only through YOU are we able to turn into what we are. Thank you, Lord. You're just so good.

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Go check out her blog where she posted this originally... https://letteringloveco.wixsite.com/loveoutsidethebox