Acts 10:38 – “You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed by the devil; for God was with Him.”  NASB

If we understand that Jesus went about Blessing people, we take a giant step toward victory.  However, unless we understand what Blessing is and how we Bless we will miss the point and miss the mark.  We will find ourselves following religious ritual and form rather than living and demonstrating the Power that Jesus demonstrated.  We will come short of the ministry and purpose He exampled.

Blessing must be understood as something that one gives to another with the view of that person being of Great Worth and Value.  That is one of the essential keys to understanding the Life and Ministry of Jesus.  He went about Blessing people!

That truth is easily grasped and embraced by most believers, but we sometimes fail to recognize that our LORD placed great value on those He blessed.  He viewed them as being of Great Worth and Significance.  Do we?  Therefore, I contend that it is vital that we understand how Jesus viewed people and learn to view them with the same mind and heart.  That would revolutionize not only the Church but the World including the political. 

Jesus viewed people through the eyes of a Blesser.  What I mean by that is that Jesus saw people as having value.  I believe that one of the greatest difficulties in the modern church is we do not see people as Jesus saw or sees them. 

I believe that it can be proven that most of the time the Church views people as the Pharisees did not as Jesus did and does.  Jesus never saw the outer presentation He saw the person.  He did not look at their exterior or their behavior.  He did not look at the outer presentation or form.  That is how the Pharisees viewed people, but Jesus looked beyond the faults, flaws, and blemishes and saw the heart and the true person.  He looked into their soul and spirit not just their outward presentation.

Let me offer an example or illustration from the Bible.  The Pharisees would look at a person and see a prostitute, a tax collector, a sinner.  Jesus never did.  He saw the person!  He looked beyond the outer form and outward presentation and saw the person on the inside.

The Pharisee’s mind said: “Prostitutes are terrible people, so we shun them and have nothing to do with them.  Tax collectors are corrupt people, so we shun them and have nothing to do with them.”  Not, Jesus, He got close to them.  No, Jesus did not go to prostitutes for pleasure, but He ate with and talked to ALL people regardless of their flaws.  He had meals with people considered sinners.  The church of that day (Synagogue) was scandalized by His approach.  How could He eat with SINNERS?

 This is illustrated in Matthew’s account of the conversion of Matthew the Tax Collector.  If you can receive it, this account is written about Matthew by Matthew and it is also recorded in Mark and Luke.  Matthew is writing about himself.  That makes the way it is recorded in Matthew of particular interest. 

Matthew says this, “Jesus passed by the receipt of custom and He saw a man named Matthew.”  Matthew is the only one of the three that said it that way.  The other two do not say, “He saw a man…”  But Jesus saw the man, not the occupation or the sinfulness.

In that day the religious people considered Tax Collectors as ‘non-persons’ without souls.  They considered them ‘dogs’, ‘vermin’, anything but human.  After all, what human being with a smidgen of decency would become a Tax Collector, therefore they cannot be human.

Matthew, because of his occupation, found a barrier between himself and virtually everyone else in Capernaum.  The Pharisees would not even look at him when they passed by.  They would spit on Tax Collectors and throw their tax money down when they walked by or came to pay their taxes.  Everybody cursed and hated them.  He was a dog, a filthy turncoat Jew who had sold his soul to the Romans and was not extracting the taxes from his own people.  The Tax Collectors were usually the richest men and the most despised in town.  Nobody treated them as human beings, but Jesus did.

Thus, when Matthew writes of his conversion and gives his testimony, he was very aware that Jesus saw him as a man, not an animal and rubbish.  No one else saw him that way, but Jesus did.  That is one of the reasons when Jesus said, “Follow Me” he walked away from his lucrative career.  That was powerful.  This is what I’m talking about in seeing people as Jesus saw and sees them.  He looked through them to who they really were and could be. 

How do we see people?  I am saying, “Oh me” and “Forgive me” as I write.  I want to dig a little deeper again in the next devotional but until then, I ask the LORD to bless you and make your way prosperous. 

Have a Great Day!