{"id":1052,"date":"2021-11-17T19:30:36","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T10:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/203.170.86.202\/wildeden.com.au\/news\/?p=1052"},"modified":"2021-11-18T18:01:10","modified_gmt":"2021-11-18T09:01:10","slug":"zacchaeus-was-a-wee-little-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/soul-food\/for-thought\/2021\/zacchaeus-was-a-wee-little-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Zacchaeus was a wee little man&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Worship Wednesday today and the two youngest children were excited to do some Bible action songs.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Some true favourites &amp; oldies: Father Abraham, I\u2019m in the Lords Army, His Banner over me and This Little Light of Mine.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>One that hit me though: Zacchaeus&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"font-size: 21px;\">? \u201cZacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he&#8230;\u201d ?\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>If you haven\u2019t heard it: it\u2019s a bubbly happy fun sort of song. But one line in it broke my voice &amp; hit me like a knife\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Jesus said: \u201cZacchaeus come down, for I\u2019m coming to your house today!!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>What a baby &#8211; are you crazy??!! Crying at\u00a0<em>that<\/em> song?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Probably crazy &#8211; but I\u2019ve been Zacchaeus:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Notorious Sinner &#8211; yep<\/li>\n<li>Ripping off own family &#8211; yep<\/li>\n<li>Thief &#8211; yep<\/li>\n<li>Deserving of being abandoned \/ imprisoned &#8211; yep<\/li>\n<li>Worthy of being ignored by or judged &amp; rejected by the Creator &#8211; ABSOLUTELY!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But Jesus doesn\u2019t ignore him. Doesn\u2019t condemn him. The rest of the crowd did &#8211; they didn\u2019t make a way, had no concern for this oxygen thief who had turned on them\u2026they block him out &#8211; literally.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So Zacchaeus climbs up the tree, hoping to get a glimpse of Jesus from afar&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>But Jesus wasn\u2019t content with that\u2026He ignores the surging crowd &amp; all those \u2018good\u2019 people. He doesn\u2019t keep walking past:<\/p>\n<p>He looks up at Zacchaeus &amp; He gives him the biggest honour available: He wants to go &amp; eat with Zacchaeus in his home! The most distinguished and powerful man on the planet, wanted to honour that rascal so calls him by name publicly! <sup class=\"modern-footnotes-footnote \" data-mfn=\"1\" data-mfn-post-scope=\"0000000005d9062f0000000014176b75_1052\"><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\"  title=\"Mind blowing! ?\"  role=\"button\" aria-pressed=\"false\" aria-describedby=\"mfn-content-0000000005d9062f0000000014176b75_1052-1\">1<\/a><\/sup><span id=\"mfn-content-0000000005d9062f0000000014176b75_1052-1\" role=\"tooltip\" class=\"modern-footnotes-footnote__note\" tabindex=\"0\" data-mfn=\"1\">Mind blowing! ?<\/span> \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And so it is with us.<\/p>\n<p>Jesus knows <em>you<\/em> by name &amp; wants the same with you. Sure, He knows what you have done. He knows your sin &#8211; including all the hidden stuff. (And the stuff you have tried to reason away or \u2018justify\u2019) He could and should condemn you&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>But instead He wants to know you. He wants to forgive you. He wants to give you life! He wants to come in &amp; dine with you. Crazy&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" title=\"Jesus-at-table-eating.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/203.170.86.202\/wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Jesus-at-table-eating.jpg?resize=598%2C356\" alt=\"Jesus at table eating\" width=\"598\" height=\"356\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Undeserved, unmerited, unlimited, unending His love and His grace is only available because of His great sacrifice.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Maybe, just maybe, when you have experienced it, you will understand the tears.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>#thankYouJesus<\/p>\n<p>#crybaby<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"modern-footnotes-list-heading \">Footnotes:<\/h3><ul class=\"modern-footnotes-list \"><li><span>1<\/span><div>Mind blowing! ?<\/div><\/li><\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you realise that the One who should condemn you wants to come &#038; eat with you instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[160],"class_list":["post-1052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-for-thought","tag-grace"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Zacchaeus-Jesus-Cares.jpg?fit=1496%2C1196&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pasDCW-gY","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1052"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1058,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions\/1058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}