To Save Sinners 

   “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.  I did not come the call the righteous but sinners.” (Mark 2: 17) 

   My salvation rests on the words of Jesus quoted above.  He came to save sinners and I am one.  If He had chosen to remain aloof from the sinners as the religious leaders of His time often did, there would have been no hope for the sinners.  For truly we are sick and need a physician.

   It took several years for me to come to my Lord.  Without the influence of my wife I’m not sure it would have happened at all; He brought her to me, and she brought me to Him.  Perhaps I would have answered His call at some later point but the beauty of His call to me through love of my wife will remain one of my greatest blessings.

   Those who find God after they have lived without Him sometimes seem to appreciate Him even more than those who have known Him all their lives.  I wish I had experienced my Lord earlier in life but finding Him a bit later helped me understand how far I had been from Him.  As St. Augustine wrote in “Confessions”, “Late have I love you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you.”

   When Jesus called Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, he was overjoyed.  He stood before the Lord and said, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything for anyone I shall repay it four times over.  (Luke 19: 8).  The Pharisees and priests could not understand, but the sinners who were called knew quite well the incredible gift of forgiveness of their sins and salvation.

   Jesus came to save me, a sinner.  The most remarkable thing I’ve learned from my faith is that He loves me so much that He would have become man and died on the cross to save me even if I were the only sinner in the world.  He would have left the ninety-nine in the desert and would have come to find me, the lost sheep (Luke 15: 1 – 7).