This Man receives sinners!

(Octavius Winslow, "A Word in Season from Christ to the Weary")   

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"This Man receives sinners!" Luke 15:2

The beings whom Jesus sought out and drew around Him, were . . .
  the burdened,
  the bowed down,
  the disconsolate,
  the poor,
  the friendless,
  the helpless,
  the ignorant,
  the weary.

He loved to lavish upon such, the fullness of His benevolent heart;
and to exert upon such, the skill of His wonder working power.

Earth's weary sons repaired to His out stretched arms for shelter, and the world's ignorant and despised, clustered around His feet to be taught and blessed.

Sinners of every character, and the disconsolate of every grade—attracted by His renown, pressed upon Him from every side.

"This Man receives sinners!" was the name and the character by which He was known. It was new and strange.

Uttered by the lip of the proud and disdainful Pharisee—it was an epithet of reproach and an expression of ridicule.
But upon the ear of the poor and wretched outcast, the sons and daughters of sorrow, ignorance, and woe—it fell sweeter than the music of the spheres.

It passed from lip to lip; it echoed from shore to shore: "This Man receives sinners!" It found its way into the abodes of misery and need; it penetrated the dungeon of the prisoner, and the cell of the maniac; and it kindled an unearthly light in the solitary dwelling of the widow and the orphan, the unpitied and the friendless.

Thus received its accomplishment, the prophecy that predicted Him as the "Plant of renown," whom Jehovah would raise up. Thousands came, faint, and weary, and sad—and sat down beneath His shadow; and thousands more since then have pressed to their wounded hearts the balm that flowed from His bleeding body—and have been healed!

"This Man receives sinners!"

Take your guilt to His blood.

Take your vileness to His righteousness.

Take your sins to His grace.

Take your burdens to His arm.

Take your sorrows to His heart.

This Man receives sinners!

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We have published Grace Gems for JANUARY 2024 in one file.