After this Jesus went out and saw a tax collector sitting at his place for collecting taxes. His name was Levi. Jesus said to him, "Follow me!" Levi got up, left everything, and followed Jesus. Then Levi gave a big dinner for Jesus. The dinner was at Levi's house. At the table there were many tax collectors and some other people too. But the Pharisees and those men that taught the law for the Pharisees began to complain to the followers of Jesus, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and other bad people?" Jesus answered them, "Healthy people don't need a doctor. It is the sick people that need a doctor. I have not come to ask good people to change. I have come to ask bad people to change their hearts and lives!"

-- Luke 5:27-32 (ERV)

"What we do is so little that we may seem to be constantly failing. But so did [Christ] fail. He met with apparent failure on the Cross. But unless the seeds fall into the earth and die, there is no harvest."

- Dorothy Day

"There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people who are treated according to the conduct of the wicked, and there are wicked people who are treated according to the conduct of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity."

- Ecclesiastes 8:14, NRSV

When the sun went down, the people brought their sick friends to Jesus. They had many different kinds of sickness. Jesus put his hands on each sick person and healed them. Demons came out of many people. The demons shouted, "You are the Son of God." But Jesus gave a strong command for the demons not to speak, because they knew Jesus was the Christ.

-- Luke 4:40-41 (ERV)

Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off -- for all whom the Lord our God will call."

-- Acts 2:38-39 tniv

While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it's not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.

-- 2 Corinthians 5:4-5 msg

The Jewish teachers of the law and the Pharisees thought to themselves, "Who is this man (Jesus)? He is saying things that are against God! Only God can forgive sins." But Jesus knew what they were thinking. He said, "Why do you have these questions in your minds? The Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. But how can I prove this to you? Maybe you are thinking it was easy for me to say, 'Your sins are forgiven.' {No one could see if it really happened.} But what if I say to the man, 'Stand up and walk'? Then you will be able to see that I really have this power." So Jesus said to the paralyzed man, "I tell you, stand up! Take your mat and go home!" Then the man stood up before the people there. He picked up his mat and walked home, praising God. All the people were fully amazed. They began to praise God. The people were filled with much respect {for God's power}. They said, "Today we saw amazing things!"

-- Luke 5:21-26 (ERV)

Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are -- face to face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.

-- 2 Corinthians 3:16-18 msg

"The question should not be 'What would Jesus do?' but rather, more dangerously, 'What would Jesus have me do?' The onus is not on Jesus but on us, for Jesus did not come to ask semidivine human beings to do impossible things. He came to ask human beings to live up to their full humanity; he wants us to live in the full implication of our human gifts, and that is far more demanding."

- Rev. Peter J. Gomes

But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. 

-- 2 Corinthians 11:3-4 tniv