The Scriptures teach us that believers should be gracious people. The Lord, who is full of grace and truth (John 1:14), is the perfect example of what it means to be gracious.

Humanly speaking, there are some people to whom it is easier to extend grace. In Mark 10, we see the Lord extend grace to a group of people. I think most of us would say that giving grace to that group was easy. It was a crowd of children. Their parents had brought these kids to the Lord so that He would touch them.

The disciples, however, rebuked the parents for–as the disciples saw it–bothering Christ with such unimportant matters. The disciples viewed Jesus as too dignified to waste His time with such insignificant things (Mark 10:13). One can almost hear them say, “Get those kids out of here!”

The Lord, however, did not see things that way. He rebuked the disciples. He then picked up the children, hugged them, and blessed them (10:16). All of this was a display of His grace toward the children and their parents.

It is easy to read that account and cheer. We would have responded in the same way the Lord did. Who doesn’t like kids?

But in the very next verse we meet somebody to whom it would be harder to extend grace. He is the exact opposite of those children. He is a rich, arrogant, self-righteous man. The parents of the children had approached Jesus in hopes that He would bless their kids. This man approaches Jesus boldly because he thinks he is worthy to do so.

The man is very high on himself. He sees himself as a very righteous man who has kept all the commandments of God. In his mind, God has be pleased with him. He simply wonders if there might be one other thing he needs to do to ingratiate himself with God. The self-righteous man wants to make sure he has dotted every “i” and crossed every “t.”

No doubt, the man thought Jesus would be impressed with his level of righteous living.

But Jesus is not. He points out to the man that he does not keep the commandments of God. He shows this rich, arrogant man that he has no right to think so highly of himself (10:17-22).

A person reading the account of the kids would have agreed with Jesus when He said, “Bring those kids here!” But I think most of us would have the exact opposite reaction to this man. We would be likely to say, “Get this man out of here!” We would be tempted to see him as a self-righteous, pompous jerk. He doesn’t think he needs any grace, so why extend it to him?

But the Lord does not respond that way. Instead of telling the man to leave, Mark says that Christ “looked” at him. The word means that he gazed at him intently, as if He were studying him. After doing so, we are told that the Lord “loved him.” The Lord wanted to give him grace, just as He did with the children who had just come to Him. In His grace, He showed the man that he was not nearly as righteous as he thought.

Why did He respond in this way? What did He see? We are not told, but I think we can guess the reasons. Perhaps Jesus realized this man was having a crisis of conscience that–even while he was deceiving himself–caused him to respond as He did. The Lord may also have taken into account the fact that, even though he was seriously mistaken in his thinking, this man was sincere in making his request. He had eagerly sought out the Lord.

More likely, however, Jesus responded as He did because of God’s love for the world (John 3:16). Every person needs the grace of God. Blind, arrogant unbelievers like this man need that grace and the love of God that extends that grace to them. We are no different. When Christ looks at us, that is what He sees.

Wouldn’t it be great if, when we gazed at people, we saw people in need of the Lord’s grace? We would be more prone to give grace to them. That is how the Lord looks at us. Let’s ask Him to make us more like Him.