As a familiar story we are vulnerable to reading it lightly.
But please, slowly read Luke 5:18 a couple of times. “Leaving everything, he rose and followed him.”
Everything. Who does that? Who can do that? Everything. EVERYTHING.
Two answers. One uncomfortable. One understandable.
It is understandable from the perspective that he might well have found tax collecting more of a grief than a pleasure. After all, sin loses its charm in due time. And taxing your friends and family would make it hard to sleep at night. One would end up hating life and hating themself.
The uncomfortable answer is that he found Jesus so compelling that he left a very lucrative trade. It is uncomfortable because of the rarity of such a person to see Jesus in such a rare way. And it’s uncomfortable because we know we often do not see Jesus as that compelling.
There’s work to be done to reach the maturity where we see Jesus as so compelling that we walk away from anything and everything that we do not serve and enjoy Jesus through.
This is a dark topic, but the logic addressing it is spot on.
The Men's Bible Reading Idea 