Downsize Fitness is a health club with a unique niche. It caters only to people who want to lose at least 50 pounds. Tara Lawton, a member of Downsize Fitness, quit her health club because she sensed she didn’t fit in. She said that people always seemed to be silently judging her. Then she found Downsize Fitness and loves it. Downsize is attractive to people like Lawton because it welcomes overweight people and then encourages them as they shed pounds and get healthy. Just as Downsize reaches out to the physically unfit, 2 millennia ago Jesus reached out to the spiritually unfit and used them to spread the good news about the kingdom of God.
One such person was Levi the tax collector. Jesus’ teaching, probably over a period of time, so captured Levi’s heart that he began following Jesus. The fact that Levi was a tax collector made his call to follow Jesus all the more amazing. Tax collectors were usually greedy, dishonest, and immoral (Luke 3:12-13,19:8). As a Jew, Levi was despised and hated by his fellow citizens because he was a mercenary working for a foreign oppressor. Nobody but Jesus would engage the spiritually unfit like Levi. The religious leaders asked Jesus why He behaved in this way (Mark 2:16). He responded by saying that just as it was natural for a doctor to associate with sick people, so it was natural for Him to call and heal the spiritually unfit (Mark 2:17). The whole purpose of Jesus’ coming was so that the spiritually unfit (those dead in their sin) could receive a change of heart and life.
Do those we deem spiritually unfit find a place in our churches today? The church was established to welcome self-confessed sinners—love them, and walk with them as they follow Jesus and grow in Him.
NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: John 2:1-25
More:
Read Acts 9:10-19 and see the story of how one man welcomed someone who was deemed spiritually unfit.
Next:
How will you practically embody the mission of Jesus to the spiritually unfit? How can you help your church to become a more welcoming place?
mike wittmer on June 19, 2013 at 10:40 am
There is a real tension here, isn’t there? The church must welcome sinners, but the more obvious struggles that our members have the more the church will look like a bunch of hypocrites. So maybe the next time someone laments the number of hypocrites in church, we should say that what else would you expect, as the church is a place for sinners. And by the way, there is room for one more!
winn collier on June 22, 2013 at 8:08 pm
Downsize Fitness, I like that idea. Thanks for connecting it to the way of brokenness and hospitality that is the church.
daisymarygoldr on June 27, 2013 at 7:52 pm
Levi ‘was’ a tax collector before He met Christ. When Jesus said “Follow me and be my disciple,” Levi got up and followed him. Don’t know how tax collectors who embezzle money from others are made to feel welcome in “our churches”. When those dead in their sin find a safe place it is called a grave. No wonder “your church” stinks of death and is devoid of sweet-smelling praise that is produced from His Church.
Spiritually unfit are in the world, not in the Church. They are unprofitable and useless—reserved for the fire. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:11″Some of you were once like that”. The Bible says “No one is righteous—not even one… all have become useless.” (Romans 3:10-12). Thankfully, Jesus came into the world to seek and save us.
Those who are saved are made alive in Christ and added to the church. In the Church that belongs to Christ, every member is spiritually alive because it is not possible for a living Head to have dead body parts. Peter refers to believers as living stones (1 Peter 2: 4-5) being “fitted” together with Christ the Cornerstone, that God is building as a place for Him to dwell(Ephesians 2:21-22).
Want to practically embody the mission of Jesus to the spiritually unfit? Then get out of your pulpit and pews. What were the final words from Jesus to His church? Build safe places for the spiritually unfit? Let us do just what He has told us to do: to go into the world, preach the Good News to everyone and make disciples. Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved.