Zacchaeus (part II)

By Odon Bulamba (summary only)

Zacchaeus understood and knew it was time to see Jesus. He didn’t ask his wife or his children if it was a good move but made up his own mind and understood his decision was personal. Zacchaeus had already organised everything and this was a spiritual secret to see God. We must know that God gave us intelligence to think; because of this we must know how to make decisions without asking others. Salvation is personal, you were born alone and you will die alone.

Deciding to be a good Christian also has its time and each person is responsible for his decisions. Woe to the one who wants to follow other man’s footsteps and woe to those who believe in man. Try not to imitate man’s way but try to find who Jesus is.

What did Zacchaeus do? We don’t know if it was raining the day he left his house and we don’t know what he was wearing, but to climb a tree with sandals and a robe on is not easy. According to Ephesians we must wear what is called spiritual armour. Christians today wear things that are not suitable. Jesus said in the last day everybody will be clothed, when we will go to the heavens we will have a new uniform and these clothes are special for the children of God.

Jesus has given us a parable about a man who didn’t wear the right clothes to a wedding feast so the king threw him out because his clothes were different. So what are you wearing? Are you a goat? Are you wearing leopard skin? Are you a sheep wearing lion skin? Zacchaeus acknowledge that what he was wearing wasn’t suitable so he took it off. As for us Christians today, we always live in hypocrisy. We want to show that we are good towards some people but we are mean to others. If you wear these clothes it is now time to take them off because you cannot climb a tree with these clothes.

Jesus said that He is the tree of life, if Jesus is the tree how can you be prepared to climb it?

The people were laughing at Zacchaeus and saying look at this man, why is he climbing a tree? He had a goal to see Jesus and this is exactly what he did. When Zacchaeus saw that he couldn’t see, people laughed at him, people criticised him but he closed his ears. As for us Christians the very first thing we must do is close our ears so that we won’t follow all the criticism about us. Secondly we must close our eyes so that we do not see the wrongs people do against us. This is the only way if we want to be able to forgive our enemies. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew chapter six – forgive our sins as we forgive others? That means that if you don’t forgive you will never be forgiven.

What is the secret to forgive? To forget all that you see. If you start meditating on what others have done to you, hatred will come into you. The Bible says in 1 John 3 that hatred is like a murder. So we must close our ears and our eyes.


Although people were laughing at Zacchaeus he still climbed the tree even though people might have compared him to a monkey or thought he was going crazy. When you are bound to Jesus people will think a lot about you. Our salvation must not be hidden in our house but we must leave the house and climb the tree.

SUMMARY
- Our spiritual decisions have to be made alone
- We have to put on the full spiritual armor of God
- Take off hypocrisy
- We have to close our ears and eyes to the criticisms of others
- Follow God even if we look crazy

For the full message please email: littlebethlehem@windowslive.com