Do you think Jesus wants to change your life? When Jesus
comes into our lives, He can CHANGE everything, like He
changed Zacchaeus’s life. Do you remember that story? It’s in
Luke 19:1-10. If it wasn’t for Luke, we would never know this
story. It’s not in any other Scripture. Zacchaeus was known to
be a small man; in those days, the average height was about
5’5”, and Zacchaeus was probably 4’9”. He was wealthy be-
cause he was a chief tax collector. In those days, the tax collec-
tors not only took money for the government, but they took
extra for themselves. That’s how they made their living. Zac-
chaeus was a chief tax collector, which means he had many
providences. He had a big house with many servants but wasn’t
someone who had integrity.

But there was something about Jesus Zacchaeus wanted to
see. That’s why he decided to climb a fig tree to see Jesus for
himself. What would a man like Zacchaeus want with Jesus?
Better yet, what would Jesus want with Zacchaeus? Jesus knew
Zacchaeus’s reputation, but he didn’t care about that. Jesus also
had a reputation: dining with tax collectors and what the Phari-
sees called the wrong people because Jesus knew they needed
Him most. In Matthew 9:12, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy
who need a doctor, but the sick. Jesus knew he made a differ-
ence. Jesus knew who needed Him the most and He didn’t care
who was upset about it.

After Jesus called Zacchaeus out of the tree, He told him he
would stay at His house that day. Zacchaeus welcomed Him
with open arms. Zacchaeus wasn’t afraid of Jesus. He was hap-
py to receive Him at his home. Don’t you wonder what Jesus
said to Zacchaeus to have such an impact on him? Do you think
He yelled or lectured him to change his ways? No, that wasn’t
Jesus’s style, Jesus talked, and He listened. He was kind and
loving toward Zacchaeus. We see the change in Zacchaeus in
Luke 19:8. It says, but Zacchaeus stood up and said to the
Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now, I give half of my possessions
to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I
will pay back four times the amount.” Four times the amount?
So, if Zacchaeus took an extra $100 from someone, he would
pay them back $400 to make things right. If another tax collec-
tor had felt guilty and returned money, he would only have to
legally give what was expected, which was $20 out of $100.
Zacchaeus was changed, to say the least.

Being kind-hearted to someone was how Jesus touched the
lives of the people going down the wrong path. But we all
know it’s tough to be kind to people that are not kind to us or
kind to the ones we know and love. What’s worse is we get
offended by people that are kind-hearted to someone that isn’t
kind to them.

What Jesus did for Zacchaeus was to show him the right
path to go down by treating him well. Remember what Je-
sus says in Luke 19:9-10 Jesus said to him, “Today salva-
tion 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.” Jesus died on the cross for all of us, espe-
cially the lost and hard to get along with. Maybe we
should take our directive from Jesus and be kind to one
another no matter the circumstance. That way, maybe one
day, we will mimic Jesus and help a modern-day Zac-
chaeus find salvation in his own home and realize he is a
son of Abraham too.

~~Barb Novad