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b'Sometimes I struggle when I read the Bible. It sorts people into two\\ngroups: the righteous and the wicked. It says God blesses the righteous and\\npunishes the wicked. That sounds kind of good, right? Justice. We should\\nall want that. My problem is, I often don\\u2019t feel like the righteous guy.\\nWhen I read: don\\u2019t covet (don\\u2019t want something that belongs to someone\\nelse), don\\u2019t lie, love God and people, and on and on\\u2026in my mind, I hear:\\n\\u201cfail, fail, fail.\\u201d And even when I try to improve, I\\u2019m never quite as good\\nas that righteous guy. I\\u2019m pretty wicked.\\nDoes this mean I need to watch out for God\\u2019s punishment? What do I do? This\\nis when Jesus helps me. Hey, He\\u2019s our Savior for a reason, right?\\nJesus hung out with a lot of wicked people: adulterers, fraudulent tax\\ncollectors, sinners. I\\u2019m like, \\u201cYeah, I\\u2019m one of those sinners!\\u201d It makes\\nyou wonder, why would Jesus hang out with them? If God loves the righteous\\nand is mad at the wicked, why wouldn\\u2019t Jesus avoid them or bring on some\\nlightning strikes? The Pharisees, who worked hard to follow God\\u2019s commands\\nand felt pretty righteous, wondered the same thing. They asked Jesus what\\nHe was doing. Jesus replied, \\u201cIt is not the healthy who need a doctor, but\\nthe sick\\u2026.I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners\\u201d (Matthew\\n9:12-13).\\nWhat? Jesus says He\\u2019s here for the wicked? Yup. Jesus is the Savior. He\\ncame to help people. Guess who needs help? Wicked sinners! And guess who\\u2019s\\na sinner according to Romans 3:23? Everybody! Guess who\\u2019s righteous?\\nNobody! (Not even the Pharisees.) The amazing truth of the gospel is that\\nJesus Christ, who never sinned, took our sins on Himself when He went to\\nthe cross, and then He rose from the dead, \\u201cso that in him we might become\\nthe righteousness of God\\u201d (2 Corinthians 5:21). No matter how wicked we\\nare, in Christ, we become the righteous. He takes our sin and gives us His\\nrighteousness. What a Savior, huh? \\u2022 Carlita Southworth\\n\\u2022 Read Matthew 9:9-13. What did Jesus say to the people who thought they\\nwere wicked? What did He say to the people who thought they were righteous? \\n\\u2022 Jesus freely gives us His righteousness\\u2014it\\u2019s not something we have to\\nearn. And once we\\u2019ve put our trust in Jesus, we don\\u2019t have to sin anymore\\nbecause the Holy Spirit in us enables us to turn away from sin and follow\\nGod\\u2019s good ways. How might Jesus be inviting you to follow Him today? What\\nmight it look like to follow Jesus out of love and gratitude, not\\nobligation or fear? \\nGod made him who had no sin [Jesus] to be sin for us, so that in him we\\nmight become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV)\\n\\xa0\\nRead Verses:\\nMatt.9.9-Matt.9.13|Rom.3.9-Rom.3.26|2Cor.5.17-2Cor.5.21'