Jesus is a redeemer, a restorer in every way. His day on the cross looked like a colossal failure, but it was His finest moment. He launched a kingdom where the least will be the greatest and the last will be the first, where the poor will be comforted, and the meek will inherit the earth. Jesus brought together the homeless with the privileged and said, “You’re all poor, and you’re all beautiful.” The cross levelled the playing field, and no earthly distinction is valid anymore. There is a new “us”-people rescued by the Passover lamb, adopted into the family and transformed into saints. It is the most epic miracle in history.
Worth
Philip Yancey
In his social contacts, Jesus went out of his way to embrace the unloved and unworthy, the folks who matter little to the rest of society but matter infinitely to God. People with leprosy quarantined outside the city wall, Jesus touched, even as his disciples shrank back in disgust. A ‘half-breed’ woman who had gone through five husbands already and was no doubt the center of the town’s gossip industry, Jesus tapped as his first missionary. Another woman, too full of shame over her embarrassing condition to approach Jesus face to face, grabbed his robe, hoping he would not notice. He did notice. She learned, like so many other ‘nobodies,’ that you can’t easily escape Jesus’ gaze. We matter too much.
Thomas Merton
Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy
Elisabeth Elliot
It is not any experience, no matter how exciting, not any vision, however vivid and dazzling, not any feeling, be it ever so deep that fits me for service. It is the power of the blood of Christ. I am “made holy by the single unique offering of the body of Jesus Christ” (Heb 10:10), and by his blood “fit for the service of the living God.”