Daily Devotional

Matthew was not a man anyone in Capernaum would have chosen. Rome sold the right to collect taxes to the highest bidder, and the collector kept whatever he could squeeze out above Rome’s share. He set the value of your goods, so he set your bill. To his neighbors he was a traitor who worked for the occupying power, a thief who got rich off his own people, and an unclean man who handled pagan coins all day and was kept out of the synagogue. If the people of Israel had drawn up a list of the least likely disciples, Matthew’s name would have been near the top.

And that is exactly where Jesus walked. He did not wait for Matthew to come to Him. He passed by, He saw him, and He spoke. Notice what Jesus did not say. He did not say, “Pay everyone back, repair your reputation, attend the synagogue for six months, and then we will talk.” He called Matthew at the booth, with the money still on the table. The call came before the cleanup. Grace was not the reward for Matthew’s repentance; grace was the cause of it.

This is the pattern of the whole Bible. God called Abram out of a pagan household. He chose Jacob the schemer. Paul would later write that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). We do not get well and then come to the Physician. We come because we are sick, and we come because He has already come looking for us. If you belong to Christ today, it is not because you were the obvious pick. It is because He passed by your booth and said, “Follow me.”