99 verses the one

Luke 15

Does God really value everyone? That is a question that we make an intellectual ascent to say, “Yes” of course God values everyone. If He does and we are His followers, do we? When you go into a convenience store, do you look the clerk in the eye and think about how valuable they are to the Lord? When the elderly person or the woman with numerous children in front of you takes longer to do their task than you would like, do you take the time to think about how valuable they are to the Lord? You get my drift; I could go on and on. I have challenging experiences like this everyday.

Jesus was challenging the Pharisees in a similar way. The Pharisees take a bad rap in much of the Gospel for their stubbornness, religiousity, and arrogance but remember Jesus kept after them because He loved them too. The Pharisees looked at those outside of their circle as bad, evil people, sinners! How often do we look at ourselves that way? Others may look at us that way as well, but Jesus does not.

There are a couple of things we need to understand about what Jesus is saying here.

He notices when we are lost. You can not escape the Lord’s eye. He knows where we are physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally and He still pursues us!

He knows we don’t know how to get there from here. No one wants to be lost. Depression hits, anger or fear overcome us, or wounds bind us up. We find ourselves lost with no way out. Jesus knows where we are and will lead us or carry us out of our lost place.

There is no one more important to the Lord than you! He notices when we are lost, He knows you can’t get here from there. He is willing to leave everyone else to come after you. Often the enemy of our souls will get us to believe that we are not that important. To a group of the most self-important people in Israel, Jesus said, if one of these that you deem unimportant is lost, I will leave all of you to go get just one. It doesn’t matter how lost we may feel Jesus sees us as important.

Two things from this devotional: first, who do you see that is lost and outsider? Begin to recognize them as valuable. Second, no matter how lost, hopeless, worthless you may feel, Jesus knows where you are and will come to you. Let Him pick you up on his shoulders and bring you back to the place where you belong.

Tomorrow Luke 16