Jesus Loves Zacchaeus

Luke 19:1-10

Our true story comes from the Bible. It is in the part, or book, of the Bible called Luke. Luke loved Jesus and wanted others to know and love Jesus, too.

Our story is about someone who didn’t know if Jesus loved him. His name was Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a tax collector. That meant his job was to collect money from everyone in town.


Zacchaeus would take more money from people than he was supposed to. And he kept the extra money for himself! It was wrong. And it made everyone mad at Zacchaeus.


One day, something wonderful happened. Jesus came to town! Everyone was so excited to see Him. Zacchaeus was excited, too. But he was too short to see over the crowd of people. Maybe Zacchaeus could jump up to see Jesus over the crowd.


The problem with jumping is that you always come back down! So that wasn’t going to work. If only there was something Zacchaeus could climb to see over all the people.


What could he do? Zacchaeus could climb a tree!


Now Zacchaeus could see Jesus! And Jesus could see him. Jesus said, "Zacchaeus! Come down right away. I want to go to your house today!"


All the people thought, "Why would Jesus want to go with HIM? He’s made so many bad choices."


But do you think there is anything we can do to make Jesus stop loving us? No. Even if we get put in timeout, does Jesus still love us? He does. Even if we forget to obey our grandmas, does Jesus still love us? Yes! And Jesus loved Zacchaeus, too. Zacchaeus was so happy that Jesus loved him and was his friend that he gave back all the money he took from the people.


Jesus loves everyone. He loves us when we make good choices and when we make some not-so-good choices. Jesus loved Zacchaeus and He loves you, too. Jesus loves everyone!



Bible Paraphrase: Love each other as I have loved you. – John 15:12, NIV

Text Truth: Jesus loves us even when we do something wrong.



Family Devotional

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” — Luke 19:1-10

Did Zacchaeus see Jesus when he was looking for Him? Yes! Zacchaeus saw Jesus! And Jesus wanted to be Zacchaeus’s friend, even though Zacchaeus had made wrong choices. Having Jesus as a friend made Zacchaeus want to make right choices. 

 Jesus loved Zacchaeus—even when he did something wrong. Because Jesus loves everyone. And Jesus wants us to love people the way He loves people. That means we need to love everyone.
Love each other as I have loved you. – John 15:12 NIV

 Have you ever done something that you knew was wrong? Everyone has. Everyone has made wrong choices, just like Zacchaeus did. But Jesus loves us anyway, and He still wants to be our friend. With your family, make a list of wrong choices you have made. 
Pray with your family. Allow any family members to pray if they wish. Thank God for sending Jesus to love everyone. Thank God that He loves use even when we do something wrong like (read through the list you made). Ask God to help you choose to do what is right and to love everyone like Jesus does. Thank God for His love. Acknowledge to God your love for Him.

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Story illustrations are the copyright of Sweet Publishing and licensed by FreeBibleimages (http://freebibleimages.org) for free download under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike 3.0 unported licence. 
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