Are you a t-shirt reader? Do bumper stickers draw your attention? Do
you look at church signs as you drive by them? If so, then you have seen the
message, “Jesus saves.” Even if you know little or nothing about Christianity,
“Jesus saves” is likely a familiar refrain to you. Yet when we move beyond the
sound bite and examine the gospel message behind it, we find that, before Jesus
saves, Jesus seeks. He seeks us. In fact, He seeks us intently.
How important is it to Jesus that people know and understand His seeking heart? When a group of Pharisees muttered among themselves about Jesus engaging the spiritual outcasts of the day, He told them in no uncertain terms it was these very “sinners” whom He had come to call back to Himself. Like a shepherd leaving ninety-nine sheep to find the lost one, and like a woman scouring her house for a missing coin, and like a father scanning the horizon for his wayward son, God searches for those who are apart from Him.
It’s not as though Jesus doesn’t know where we are; He does. Yet history shows we are perfectly capable of shutting God out, even when He reveals Himself to us in jaw-dropping ways. When Jesus miraculously healed the sick on the Sabbath, how did the religious leaders respond but to accuse Him of breaking the moral law? After God performed miracle after miracle to extricate His enslaved people from Egypt, how did they react to threatening circumstances but to beg Moses to escort them back there?
So Jesus calls to us in ways only our hearts can hear. How deeply moving is it, for instance, to receive kindness and care from another who expects nothing in return, especially when that person is a total stranger? Have you ever noticed “something different” about a person, later to discover it was the joy and peace of Christ shining out from within? Have you ever heard stories of non-believers who startled themselves by calling out to God in a moment of crisis? And sometimes we just reach the end of ourselves—weary and disillusioned—only to find God there with us, just as He had been all along.
When we finally hear Jesus’ voice and turn to Him, what fills our vision but His wide-open arms eager to embrace us and carry us home. No one is happier at our return than Jesus is, for we are His in the first place. We gratefully experience salvation from the vantage point of the endangered sheep, but He celebrates our return as the One who cares enough to leave everything behind to come and find us. “I tell you,” He said, “. . . there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent” (Luke 15:7).
Jesus seeks. Jesus saves. Jesus celebrates!
Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep. (Luke 15:6)
[See the daily reading in Luke 15:1-7]
How important is it to Jesus that people know and understand His seeking heart? When a group of Pharisees muttered among themselves about Jesus engaging the spiritual outcasts of the day, He told them in no uncertain terms it was these very “sinners” whom He had come to call back to Himself. Like a shepherd leaving ninety-nine sheep to find the lost one, and like a woman scouring her house for a missing coin, and like a father scanning the horizon for his wayward son, God searches for those who are apart from Him.
It’s not as though Jesus doesn’t know where we are; He does. Yet history shows we are perfectly capable of shutting God out, even when He reveals Himself to us in jaw-dropping ways. When Jesus miraculously healed the sick on the Sabbath, how did the religious leaders respond but to accuse Him of breaking the moral law? After God performed miracle after miracle to extricate His enslaved people from Egypt, how did they react to threatening circumstances but to beg Moses to escort them back there?
So Jesus calls to us in ways only our hearts can hear. How deeply moving is it, for instance, to receive kindness and care from another who expects nothing in return, especially when that person is a total stranger? Have you ever noticed “something different” about a person, later to discover it was the joy and peace of Christ shining out from within? Have you ever heard stories of non-believers who startled themselves by calling out to God in a moment of crisis? And sometimes we just reach the end of ourselves—weary and disillusioned—only to find God there with us, just as He had been all along.
When we finally hear Jesus’ voice and turn to Him, what fills our vision but His wide-open arms eager to embrace us and carry us home. No one is happier at our return than Jesus is, for we are His in the first place. We gratefully experience salvation from the vantage point of the endangered sheep, but He celebrates our return as the One who cares enough to leave everything behind to come and find us. “I tell you,” He said, “. . . there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent” (Luke 15:7).
Jesus seeks. Jesus saves. Jesus celebrates!
Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep. (Luke 15:6)
[See the daily reading in Luke 15:1-7]
No comments:
Post a Comment