Over the next three weeks I want to examine Jesus and the way he related to people and how we can apply it to our own relationships. There are three things that every one, every human being, needs to have a successful relationship, we will call them the triple A’s: Acceptance, Appreciation, and Affection. Lets begin with Acceptance.

"Now it happened, as He was dining in Levi's house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many, and they followed Him. And when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, "How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?" When Jesus heard it, He said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." (Mark 2:15-17 NKJV).

Jesus was sitting at dinner with people who were considered the dregs of society; tax collectors, prostitutes, bar girls, camp followers, gamblers and drunks. The Pharisees were incensed, how could any good Jew sit and eat dinner with such people. Jesus was violating their idea of acceptability.

Jesus accepted these people just as they were. He didn’t tell them they had to change in order for Him to have any kind of relationship with Him.

Bob was an intelligent, affable, soft spoken young fellow. He graduated high school with a 3.8 grade point average and was offered a scholarship to several universities. But, Bob chose to attend an accredited trade school to become an auto mechanic. He got a job as a mechanic’s apprentice while he attended the trade school. Soon after he graduated he was hired on as a mechanic with a local dealership and quickly gained a reputation as an excellent mechanic, personable and honest. He liked being a mechanic. He planned to one day open his own shop.

One evening he was called out to tow Mary’s car in off the freeway. As they rode back to the shop they talked and Mary mentioned that she had not has dinner. Bob liked her and so asked her to have dinner with him. And so as things will be, in about a year Bob knelt before Mary with a diamond ring and asked her to marry him, and she said yes. Just a short while after the honey moon, Mary began to nag Bob about giving up being a mechanic. As she said, "I just want him to make something better of himself."

Bob was unhappy because Mary had married a mechanic, he wanted to be a mechanic and she refused to allow him to be comfortable being a mechanic. Mary was unhappy because she married Bob with the full intent of getting him to become someone else. Bob felt that Mary did not love him because she could not accept him as he was.

Everyone needs to feel that the people with whom they have a relationship accepts them as they are, for who they are, for what God created them to be.

Not too many years ago, it was unacceptable to be left handed. Many left handed people used to get their knuckles cracked when they would write with their left hand. We have since learned that this practice has caused some southpaws some mental problems later in life.

In our relationships we must accept the other individuals as Jesus did. He accepted them for what they were. He accepted them for who they were. He accepted them for who and what God created them to be.