Matthew 9:12 “…Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

This passage is couched between stories of Jesus healing a paralytic, calling a tax collector home, healing a woman who hemorrhaged for 12 years, and raising a young girl from the dead. God rescues and heals the ones who need Him. God is far more interested in His brokenhearted, lost children coming home than the righteous displaying outward piety and religiosity devoid of inner faith. He wants our whole hearts, and not “burnt offerings” (or, simply, going through the motions of religion). David understood this, when he composed Psalm 51:16: “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart.” Come to Jesus in brokenness and need, desiring mercy, and be healed.

Photo: Barcelona, Spain