“Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.” Luke 15:6-7

There is great relief and joy to the heart when a loved one is relieved from harm and danger. The parent who becomes overwhelmed with joy and rejoice with tears when their once endangered child is freed out of hopelessness, returned from helplessness, or delivered from a dark pit of destruction. It is in moments like these that true love and desire are known. The scripture passage illustrates to us the heart of God for His wayward and wandering children who are lost in sin. He is in a relentless search to seek out and find those who wander in sin, those like sheep who nibble on the world’s delights and stray further and further from the Shepherd’s voice. Sheep are led and guided by the shepherd’s voice. They know his voice and follow him into green pastures. Yet there are times when a sheep will follow their hunger rather than their hearing. Today, so many, like wandering sheep, follow their hunger and develop an appetite for immediate gratification and pleasure, as they feast on the delicacies of the world and its lure. The word of God calls out to all who are lost in sin, who are lured by lust, who lean on their own understanding, and seek their own way. God is relentless to “sweep…and search” every piece of furniture in the household of life to recovery that one who lost and lured in sin (Lk 15:8-10). God’s heart anxiously anticipates the recovery of that “which was lost.” He rejoices over every one “for I have found” and all those with Him “rejoice” and share in “that likewise joy…in heaven” because they are daily in His presence. My friend, do you long to see a loved one saved? Do you look for the day they finally hear the Father’s call and come to Him? Be faithful in prayer. Be faithful to carry the word of God with you wherever you go and “speak the truth in love” (Eph 4:15).  “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Pet 1:2-4). In the blessed Name of Jesus. Amen.