Ever Feel Empty

The Roman overlords levied taxes but they sold a tax franchise to different people. A man could agree to pay Rome so much money and then he would levy taxes in his district to collect the money. He could keep what he would collect over what he owed Rome. Tax collectors took advantage of the people and made big money.

A man named Zacchaeus was a tax collector who took advantage of people by overcharging the people for their taxes. But he found that no matter how much he got, he felt empty inside; he had an awful restlessness. No peace.

Only Jesus can fill that emptiness in a man's life. "For Jesus was to pass that way." Christ always passes your way. He comes to you at the point of your need.

Jesus looked up and said, "Zacchaeus (Jesus called him by name). We are living in the computer age and sometimes we feel so isolated from one another; we think nobody cares, nobody thinks of us as a person.

But Jesus identified Zacchaeus as a person with a name. I think everybody hears Christ call him by name at some time. You feel God is very intimate with you, very near.

Zacchaeus said, "Lord, behold I will give half my goods to the poor and if I have taken anything from any man by false methods I will restore him fourfold............When you truly meet Christ, He shakes you up. This Man turns you around and you take on the characteristics of Christ himself.

All at once, Zacchaeus saw the kind of man he had been. He said, "I am going to start giving and restoring and loving. I have been trying to take a man before he took me.

He had found the Source for his life and the joy of giving. He found that more important then getting, it was giving. Jesus said to him, "This day is salvation come to this house."

Wouldn't this country be something if that was the rule rather than the exception?