By: Scott Adkins, Sling ‘n Stone Ministry
Carter County Times
Cash Registers & Waterpots
What have cash registers and waterpots to do with following Jesus? Answer: Everything. Matthew 9 and Luke 5 describe how the tax collector Levi responded when Jesus invited Levi: “Follow Me.” (Matt. 9:9) (Luke 9:27) Scripture calls the tax collector Levi “a publican.” (Luke 5:27) Jews despised publicans as the lowest of low – thieves and traitors. But Levi’s low standing meant nothing to Jesus. Why? Because, like us, Levi was a sinner, whom Jesus came to call to repentance. (Luke 5:13) But how did Levi respond when Jesus called?
Levi “sat a receipt of custom,” (Matt. 9:9), in Capernaum’s tax office. Jesus said to Levi, “Follow Me.” (Matt. 9:9) (Luke 9:27) Levi immediately abandoned his cash register and, unlike Lot’s wife, Levi never looked back. Scripture nowhere indicates Levi delayed. Instead, Levi “forsook all he had,” (Luke 14:33), and followed Jesus to the end. And in the end, Levi became Matthew, one of Jesus’s twelve Apostles; wrote the Gospel bearing his new name; and got that new name forever inscribed into heaven’s very foundations. (Revelation 21:14)
What about waterpots? John 4 recounts Jesus’s meeting a woman at Jacob’s well in Sychar, a Samaritan city Jews avoided because Jews hated Samaritans. (John 4:9) As with Levi, the Jews hating Samaritans did not slow Jesus down. Nope. He stepped on the gas, telling the Samaritan woman, “all she ever did;” and then, Jesus revealed Who He is. (John 4:26) (“I that speak unto thee am He.”) Realizing Who spoke to her, the woman hurried back to Sychar to testify that the Messiah had come. (John 4:29)
Like Levi, the Samaritan woman did not delay. She “left her waterpot, and went her way into the city.” (John 4:28) Likely that waterpot was all she had. But she left that waterpot and obeyed Jesus without delay, and without looking back. Now, John’s Gospel forever remembers her.
Both Levi and the Samaritan woman gladly did what we too must do if we will “inherit eternal life.” (Matt. 19:16) Both unhesitatingly left everything to follow Jesus, (Luke 14:33); in so doing, they answered Jesus’s universal call to repentance. (Matt. 9:13) Now, both forever abide with Him in that city “where the Lamb is the light.” (Rev. 21:23) If we would join them, we must likewise unhesitatingly forsake our cash registers and waterpots to follow Him. To do so, we must hate our own lives; deny ourselves; and carry our cross. (Luke 14:26-33)
If we delay or hold back anything, we fool ourselves, being hearers of His Word, and not doers. (James 1:22) Lest we fool ourselves, we must remember that Jesus asks: “(W)hat shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:37) Jesus asks this not of rich fools who forsake Him, but of us who say we follow Him. Is eternity worth our cash registers and waterpots? Let’s not fool ourselves; let us now forsake all to follow Jesus without looking back – just like a publican and Samaritan woman so wisely did.
