Regardless of what you may have heard or read, Frank and Jesse James, two of the most famous outlaws of all time, were cold-blooded murderers. Their father, though, was a Baptist pastor and the founder of William Jewel College in Liberty, Kentucky. Their mother was raised in a Catholic convent. Both parents espoused values very different from those that their sons held. Yet, Robert James, their father, deserted his wife and sons while they were still very small so that he could search for gold in California. (1)

But enough about the Baptists. Another of the men who terrorized the West was named John Wesley Hardin. Guess where he got his name? Hardin was the son of a Methodist circuit rider who also taught school and practiced law. Hardin’s father, a fervent Texan, raised his son to hate the North. When Hardin, at age 14, shot and killed a black man in honest self-defense, his father sent him away, not trusting the justice of the Northern Reconstruction government in Texas.

Hardin subsequently killed Federal soldiers on a number of occasions, though the Civil War had ended years earlier. He also spent 17 years in prison for shooting a deputy. Perhaps John Wesley Hardin would have taken a different path if his father had not hated the government so much and if his father had not shielded him from facing justice when he shot his first victim. (2) Regardless, it is clear that though the fathers of Frank and Jesse James and of John Wesley Hardin were men of the cloth, they were not great role models.

Have you ever wondered how to tell if someone has truly committed his life or her life to Jesus Christ? There are so many phonies nowadays. So much that goes under the name of religion is exploitive. So many have been misled by religious leaders who did not "walk the talk." How can you tell genuine faith? Time and time again Jesus gave us the formula. "You shall know a tree by its fruit." That’s it! It is as simple as it can be. A bad tree cannot bear good fruit and a good tree will not bear bad fruit. You can always tell.

Consider this little man Zaccheus. ZACCHEUS WAS DETERMINED THAT HE WAS GOING TO SEE A MIRACLE TAKE PLACE IN HIS OWN LIFE. A chief tax collector does not climb trees unless he is desperate. It’s hard to maintain your dignity while shimmying up a sycamore. But there Zaccheus was. Small of stature, there was no other way he could behold the Master passing by. And he was determined that if there was any hope at all for him, he was not going to miss this opportunity.

Zaccheus reminds me of a story that former coach John Madden tells about Jim Burt, a professional football player with the New York Giants. Jim was an All-American at the University of Miami (Florida), but he was ignored in the NFL draft. He had to talk the Giants into signing him. At training camp, he heard that when a rookie was cut by a team, an equipment boy would knock on the door of his room and tell him to go see the coach.

"You know what Jim did?" Bill Parcells, the Giants’ coach, told Madden. "Jim slept on the floor under his bed. He figured if somebody came to his room but couldn’t find him, he wouldn’t get cut." Parcell found out about Burt’s strange but determined strategy when he asked him why he looked like he wasn’t getting any sleep. Burt told the coach he had been sleeping on the floor the last five nights. That’s determination. (3)

In one of his books Norman Vincent Peale tells about a ragged newsboy years ago in Chicago who had that same kind of determination. This young fellow used to huddle on a sidewalk grating near the Chicago TRIBUNE building because the flow of heat from the presses operating in the basement kept him warm. From that vantage point, the boy could see well dressed men and women going into a theater across the street where brilliant lights on the marquee spelled out the evening’s attraction. He decided one cold night that someday he would be that attraction himself, and to record the birth of this impossible dream he took a rusty nail and scratched his name and the date on the concrete windowsill behind the grating. The years passed, and the dream did not die, and the day came when the ragged newsboy, now attired in white tie and tails, held the crowds that came to the theater spellbound with the most astounding array of magical tricks the stage had ever seen. He was Howard Thurston, the great magician, and sometimes he would take his friends and show them the name and date dimly scratched on the concrete windowsill so many years before. (4)

It is difficult to deny someone with that kind of determination. Zaccheus had that kind of determination. Impervious to his pride and his place in the community, he shimmied up the sycamore so that he could see Jesus. He longed for a change in his life. He believed Jesus could bring that kind of change. So he climbed up in the tree and waited. His diligence was rewarded. The Master spotted him there in that sycamore tree and called him to come down. "Zaccheus make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today." What? The Master stay in the house of a despised tax collector? Yes, indeed. Let the crowd murmur. Let the self-righteous squirm. The Master knew Zaccheus was searching and that he was serious. What more could Christ look for in a human heart someone who is determined to make a new start to experience new life.

But there is a second thing to be said. ZACCHEUS WAS WILLING TO MAKE WHATEVER CHANGES WERE NECESSARY IN ORDER TO EXPERIENCE THIS NEW LIFE HE SO CRAVED. Some people want to experience new life but they want to do it on their terms. They want to do it without making any real changes in their lives. "Next year I’m going to be a changed person!" Charlie Brown tells Lucy. "That’s a laugh, Charlie Brown!" she says. "I mean it!" he replies. "I’m going to be strong and firm!" "Forget it," she says as she walks off. "You’ll always be wishy-washy!" "Why can’t I change just a little bit?" Charlie Brown asks himself. "I’ll be wishy one day," he shouts, "and washy the next!"

That’s the degree of change many of us desire. Rather than wishy-washy we’ll just be wishy one day and washy the next. We want life to be better but we want it to happen without any significant action on our part.

William L. Stidger in his book, THERE ARE SERMONS IN STORIES, once told about the owner of a small drugstore. For some reason this druggist hated his work, so he spent his mornings looking for something better and his afternoons at the ball park.

He soon decided it was foolish to leave a business about which he knew something for one about which he knew nothing. So he decided to make the best of what he had. He would build up his business by giving the best service possible.

When a customer who lived near would call in an order on the telephone, he would repeat each item being ordered and his assistant would fill the order. With the order filled, the owner would keep the customer on the line while the delivery boy dashed out the front door. When the delivery boy reached the customer’s house, who was still on the line with the drugstore owner, she would excuse herself for a minute to answer the door. Coming back to the phone she would express great surprise at the quickness with which the order was delivered.

News got around about the drugstore that filled orders so promptly and soon Charles R. Walgreen, founder of the great Walgreen drugstore empire, had more business than he could handle. Walgreen said his work was easy like a game and he soon found great joy in what he once despised. (5)

Walgreen saw that since he could not change his situation, he would change himself. Many of us want to try it the other way. We want to achieve our dreams without adjusting our deeds. What we are basically searching for is magic. We want to be able to manipulate life without it costing us anything. What Jesus brings is not magic but medicine. There is something sick within the human heart. There was something sick in Zaccheus. He could not be the same person he had been if he took the Master’s medicine. He surely must have realized that. But he was determined and he was willing to change.

Finally, ZACCHEUS WAS WILLING TO LIVE OUT THAT TO WHICH HE HAD MADE A VERBAL COMMITMENT. "Behold, Lord, the half my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold." Impressive. Zaccheus saw the kind of change that was needed in his life and he made it. He put his money where his heart was. Jesus has that kind of effect on people. He can make the greedy, generous. He can make the weak, strong. He can make the resentful, kind. His touch can work miracles where people are searching and are willing to change. Let’s use an analogy.

Sometimes a person only blossoms out, only shows his hidden strengths, his hidden gifts, after another individual has invested a little Loveland except for that investment of love, the virtues and the talents of many gifted individuals would be unknown to the world. Such was the case with Snow Man, except that Snow Man wasn’t a person but a horse.

Snow Man was a nameless, gray white gelding that Harry De Leyer picked up cheaply at a horse auction. The only other bid for the horse came from a glue factory.

Harry trained Snow Man, and the horse served well at the girls’ school where Harry was the riding master. However, when the school closed for the summer, a neighbor made a generous offer for Snow Man, and Harry could not afford to refuse it. So Snow Man had a new home.

Snow Man, however, liked his old home. Time and time again he jumped the neighbor’s high fences and returned to Harry. Finally, Harry bought his horse back.

In that series of events, though, was a clue to Snow Man’s real greatness. Snow Man was a natural jumper, and the horse that once jumped fences to return to his loving previous master later jumped at Madison Square Garden for two national titles! (6) All Snow Man needed was the love and attention of his master.

That is what Zaccheus needed as well. Zaccheus knew that there was something more in life and he was determined to experience it. He was willing to make whatever change was necessary in life to see his dream come true. After he had felt the touch of the Master’s hand, he was willing to live up to his new commitment by no longer being dishonest in his work, by making restitution for the wrongs he had done in the past, and by sharing what he had with the needy. Was his conversion real? Would that all of us could experience that kind of a conversion.

How can we tell it is real? You know a tree by its fruit. What kind of fruit are you bearing? Have you experienced the touch of the Master’s hand? Have you experienced new life in Christ? If you really want it want it enough to change it can be yours. All Christ wants is to bring out the best that is within you. He did it for Zaccheus. He can do it for each of us as well.

1. Castel, Albert. "Men Behind the Masks: The James Brothers," American History Illustrated (June, 1982), pp. 1018.

2. McGinty, Brian. "John Wesley Hardin," American History Illustrated (June 1982) pp. 3236

3. John Madden, ONE KNEE EQUALS TWO FEET, (New York: Jove Books, 1987).

4. POWER OF THE PLUS FACTOR, (New York: Fawcett Crest, 1987).

5. J.B. Fowler, Jr., ILLUSTRATED SERMONS FOR SPECIAL OCCASIONS, (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press, 1988).

6. Paul Aurandt, PAUL HARVEY’s THE REST OF THE STORY, Lynne Harvey, ed. (New York: Bantam Books, 1977), pp. 68.