Christian Parenting

Hello and welcome to the True Seekers podcast.

A truth seeker is someone who wants to know the truth.

They search for what's true and they won't rest until they find it.

I am a true seeker, and if you are too, then you've come to the right place where we will search for truth each week in the stories of the Bible.

But hello, truth seekers, welcome back.

In today's episode, we are going to learn about a man named Zechias.

Can you say, Zekees, before we begin, let me ask you a question.

Have you ever felt like you were just too sinful or too bad for Jesus to love?

Have you ever felt like your sin was so bad that Jesus could never forgive you?

Have you struggled to know the love of Jesus over you because you feel like you just aren't good enough?

Well, I have some good news for you. Today's story is going to give

you a lot of hope about how Jesus helps, even the worst of sinners. Let's listen to today's story.

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zekees. He was a chief tax collector and was very wealthy.

Now, to be a tax collector in Israel was not a popular job. In fact, most of the Israelites despised

tax collectors because they worked for the Roman Empire. And most of the tax collectors were greedy thieves.

They would charge the Israelites more money than what they really owed to the Roman government

and keep that extra money for themselves. That is stealing. They stole that money and used it to make

themselves rich. That is how Zekees became rich.

He was pocketing the extra tax money he was charging his fellow Israelites.

This means that Zekees probably did not have very many friends,

and the friends he did have were probably other tax collectors like himself.

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