Ron Hutchcraft Ministries - A New Set of Lenses (Part 3 of 4)

When Jesus saw the tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax booth (Luke 5 ), he didn't see him as a man who was culturally hated by many, but as a man with the potential for great influence. And we see his influence carried out in Luke 5:29 when he "held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them."

Did you notice what just took place? Not only did Jesus reach out to someone of the character of Levi and call him to follow Him, but then Levi reached out and brought other "Levi's" to meet with Jesus. There probably wasn't a single "professional God salesman" in town that could have gotten the kind of people to Jesus like Levi did. And yet, he was God's man for reaching the people who were just like him, only without a Savior.

There are probably many titles of the people reading this blog - pastors, teachers, coaches, moms and dads, etc. But I believe that the most important title we have is the one that has been given to us by God Himself, as He calls us His "ambassadors" in 2 Corinthians 5:20 . What is an ambassador? An ambassador is someone who has been appointed by the person in the highest authority to represent him in a specific place. Levi was God's ambassador to the community of lost tax collectors - and they showed up!

As we continue our discussion of needing a new set of lenses, perhaps you could use a renewed perspective of realizing why you are where you are. Have you ever given much thought to why you work where you work? Why you live where you live? Why you recreate where you recreate? You say, "Well, I work where I work because they give me a paycheck, I live where I live because I can afford the mortgage, I exercise where I exercise because I like the environment."

Those things are certainly important and vital to our day-to-day living. But listen, you are where you are because of God's divine positioning of your life. He has strategically placed you where you are and has given you influence into specific lives for one primary purpose - to take people to heaven with you! Let me ask you a question. Who is a lost teacher most likely to listen to about the Gospel? A teacher who knows Jesus! Why? Because they share the same world every day. They have the same struggles. They understand each other's viewpoints. And it's where the teacher with Jesus has been placed with influence into the lives of other teachers who are without Jesus for the primary purpose of taking them to heaven.

Take a moment to think about where God has placed you. Who is within your sphere of influence that God wants you to reach with His message? Whose eternity will hang in the balance unless you, like Levi, use the influence God has given you to get those people to Jesus?

In this blog series we've discussed the necessity for us to begin seeing people through the eyes of Jesus, and we must come to grips with how God has divinely positioned our life for eternal influence. In our next blog and last in this series, we will talk about fear - the one thing that keeps most of us from acting as the ambassador that God calls each of us to be.