“But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.”
1 Peter 2:9 NLT
How do we see ourselves? When we look at the tax collector Levi, he was a man that was looked down upon but had wealth and freedom. However he was willing to leave everything to follow Jesus. While this would have been a great privilege, it is also hard to leave the safety and security of his present life to enter into the unknown even though his culture held disciples in high regard. Yet Levi wasn’t bound by the his culture, he would have been seen as a cultural and religious sell out for working for the Roman occupation.
So why does a person like Levi get up and follow Jesus leaving everything he has?
The simple answer would be that Jesus called him, and I believe that this is the case but I also believe that we need to recognize what this means. At the very least we know that Jesus was a popular teacher that people wanted to come and listen to, but as I mentioned before this would not have been a strong enough draw for Levi who by some perspectives had left this custom behind.
What kind of weight does the calling of Jesus have on a person’s life?
As Peter put it in the scripture above, Jesus is calling Levi from darkness into light. Jesus is reaching down into who Levi really is, he is not a tax collector, collecting taxes is what he does. Levi is a child of God. He was born into the saving promise of God, and when Jesus called him, or more accurately said, “Come and follow me.” Levi is hearing the voice of the promise being renewed in his very soul. This promise is by far more powerful than any wealth because the promise cannot be stolen or lost, yes we can seem to forget it. However, the voice of Jesus resonates in Levi’s soul renewing a hope that had been dormant, being reminded of the truth of who he really was.
As Jesus said in the Gospel of John 10:27 “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” Levi had probably never met Jesus before, but the voice he heard that day was familiar. It was God calling to him through the noise of wealth, greed, fear, worthlessness, the words of those who constantly belittled him, and the religion that cast him to the side and was welcomed back into the promise of God.
Jesus is calling each of us to follow Him. Not just so He will have a following but because He wants to give us the renewed heart and life of the promise of God. May we have the ears to hear and eyes to see Jesus calling to us through the joys of this world, through the stress and anxieties and into the treasure of life with Jesus.