God, your God, will restore everything you lost; he’ll have compassion on you; he’ll come back and pick up the pieces from all the places where you were scattered. Deuteronomy 30; selected verses.
Have you ever misplaced something—your keys, a wallet, important papers? When we lose something, we usually begin searching the most likely places it could be. When our initial efforts fail to locate the missing object, panic begins to set in and we will start looking in the most ridiculous places: the pantry, the refrigerator, the seat cushions, or under the bed. Basically, we will look at anything we’ve touched and anywhere we’ve been since discovering an item was missing. When those efforts fail, we become completely devoid of all logic and begin searching in the very places we have already looked. Somewhere deep inside we know it can’t possibly be there, but we do it anyway because we are so frantic to find what is missing!
True story: My brother once found his milk in the kitchen cabinet! My own experience has been that had I searched more diligently in the first place or two I looked, I probably would have found whatever it was I was looking for. Giving a quick glance around or a less than thorough rummaging through things, doesn’t produce much success for me. If it isn’t obvious, I tend to move on to the next place. While looking for our misplaced items may look more like a frenzied I Love Lucy skit, there are much more serious situations that involve the finding of lost things.
While it is painful to see those “lost pet” signs posted around neighborhoods, sadder still is when people, particularly children, go missing. At that point, everything seems to come to a standstill and everyone’s focus is shifted toward finding those persons who are lost: Emergency alerts are sounded on phones, the media is broadcasting special reports, search teams are organized, aerial searches are conducted and everyone is praying. Thankfully, these measures can sometimes lead to good outcomes.
There is yet another kind of “lostness” we can experience that is the most devastating of all because it involves, indeed determines, our eternal circumstances. According to the Bible, the unsaved are typically referred to as “lost”. Lost souls can present a great challenge for those of us who have been found, but not for God, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit.
The love of God is grace-filled and is open to every living person on earth. However, it is not an “unconditional” love; not a cheapened, blind, “anything goes” type of grace. The fact that grace exists at all means that there is our inexplicable human need of it! We all are sinners in need of God’s great and love-filled grace. This holy grace works for us, not against us. Because of this, there are conditions upon which we receive His saving grace. Otherwise, we would continue living within our lostness, foolishly thinking we have found what we need, while continuing to behave as if our salvation had never occurred, or worse, that we never desired it.
The great theologian, John Wesley, named this circular flow of grace between God and man, responsible grace. God’s grace exists. Period. But in order to receive it, we must respond to it. It is not a matter of our “worthiness” to receive—not one of us is worthy—it is simply our responsibility to respond to the grace that is offered freely for all. (Free to us, but coming at great cost to God.).
Grace is not a faucet God is turning on and off when it comes to our wayward selves—flowing at times when we feel spiritually connected, then being cut off when we sin. Its purpose is to mold, meld, teach and convict us, in an effort to draw us closer to Him. It means feeling bad deep inside when we know we have not behaved as we ought. A guilty conscious is a gift from God; it spurs us on toward living a more holy life. Sometimes God’s grace can be a better teacher than God’s reproof. I’ll never forget this line from a famous movie: When the gods want to punish you, they answer your prayers. Oh, how a soft answer from God can turn away the wrath from our hearts! He will send the Holy Spirit to break through our armor, melting the heart like a block of ice melting into a puddle of water.
I remember reading a short devotion years ago that put into perfect perspective this magnificent offering of God that is called grace. This true story, written by the perpetrator looking back on his youth, went something like this…
There was a young boy who had a penchant for staying out past his curfew, which was to be home by dinner time. He was always having such fun riding bikes and playing with friends, that he often lost track of time—which was always met with reprimand from his parents. One night he really pushed the limits and came home well after dark to a very quiet house. He instantly regretted his folly, and knew he was in BIG trouble. His parents had already gone to bed and their silence spoke volumes.
As he sat there in the dark feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt for his selfish and disrespectful behavior, the faint glow of light coming from the oven caught his eye. As he approached it, there he saw, under the glittering tinfoil of grace, a meal being kept warm for one disobedient son.
What a perfect picture of the grace of God. We disobey, He continues to feed us. He reprimands, but He doesn’t leave us alone in the dark. He is always there, ready, willing and waiting for us to simply turn around and see Him there. For our part, this is called repentance. It is the recognition that we have gone astray, that we need to confess our sin and ask for God’s ever-present and loving forgiveness. Only then, can we begin walking in a new and soul-satisfying direction; we are able to feel the cleansing of guilt from our previous offense, as well as feeling the closeness that returns in our relationship with God. Obedience can bring such inner peace and fulfillment! It is the finding of familiar territory, a “returning home”, when we have temporarily lost our way.
God woos and pursues us and like my opening paragraph, as we ourselves search diligently for lost things, it is God who takes the initiative, and will stop at nothing to find those who are lost. Christs’ travel itinerary was to meet, befriend, teach and forgive sinners by bringing them the awesome, redemptive grace of God. From a tax collector hanging out in a tree, to a scandalous woman at a well, to gluttons, drunkards, and prostitutes, His laser-like focus was to bring sinners home; to gather and bind up those who are lost in their sin and bring them home. He would even leave a multitude of vulnerable sheep to go after the one who had wandered off. His love for even one was worthy of it, and that has never stopped. He still stands at the door of our hearts and knocks, knowing the treasure He brings will change everything—if only we will crack open that inner chamber.
For those of us who have opened wide the door of our hearts to Jesus, what if the intensity of our love for Him spilled over to others in such a demonstrative way as what I have described in searching for lost people? What might happen if we were to bring the same level of fervor for “lost” souls, as we do in response to a missing child report? How many churches dot the landscape of our neighborhoods? Housed within each one lies a potential “search team” for the lost sheep of Christ. What if we had a more organized, intentional approach for those neighboring churches to come together and multiply their efforts? What if we shared our resources for holding special events—a revival of sorts?
Rather than the “missing people posters” that are typically attached to telephone poles and storefronts, what if WE were the posters, standing on street corners, pointing The Way to safety and a life of abundant peace rather than mere pleasure? We are not the way, rather, the church is a sign community that points others to The Way; to encourage others to seek a different way, to walk in a different direction. We are called to point them in the way they should go. As Jesus affirmed, I am the way, the truth and the life.
Our faith is a living, breathing state of being. We are alive in Christ, no longer dead in our trespasses. We have been rescued, for He has saved us. Our gratitude and compassion should stir our desire in leading others to find this way of life that brings such sweet serenity to our souls in the here and now, and most importantly in the hereafter. Our affirmative response to Christ accomplishes for us what we cannot possibly do for ourselves: negate the penalty of our sin which is death, and navigate the life that we now live with meaning and purpose with the rock-solid assurance of our eternal destination. We can know that in Jesus, we have everything we need to handle the pain and grief and the seemingly “unfairness” of this life, that we all inevitably encounter. This world is broken, but there is One who was broken for us that can bring about a holy healing, a total transformation, a brand new life!
Let’s take a brief look at the familiar parables Jesus taught about “the lost”. It could be referred to as “The Lost Trilogy”—sounds like good fodder for a movie or television series, doesn’t it? There are some common threads weaving their way through each of these teachings. We have a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. Right away we notice each missing “person, place or thing” brings on an intensity of searching, finding, and celebrating! That which was lost held great value for the owner, which is Jesus, the storyteller. Therefore, in each instance, they were found because they were eagerly and relentlessly searched for!
Scripture clearly teaches that we are saved because the Lord, out of His great love and compassion, took the initiative. This is always the case—we love because God first loved us. In Luke 19:10, Jesus said, The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. The lost don’t only need finding—they also need saving. We would never stop at merely locating a missing or exploited child, we must go in and actually rescue that precious child! This is precisely why Jesus came into the world: To rescue us from our own human depravity as only He can. There is seeking and there is finding, but the “saving” is that provisional grace of rescue that can only come from the atoning blood of Christ who cleans and purifies our soul.
What exactly is it that we are seeking or searching for? Fruits that will last or the temporary fruits of a fleeting world that carry no future benefit? We must take the long view and we have plenty of encouragement for doing so. Jesus says…
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. Matthew 7:7
For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Luke 11:10
How easy and light He makes our escape from a burdened life. And oh how He wants to celebrate with us! “Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.” People who have sinned are like the lost sheep. When Jesus found that sheep, he lifted it up, draped it over his shoulders and carried it back to the fold. Did he scold it for wandering away? No. The sheep was simply acting in the way of a sheep, they are prone to wander. When we find what we’ve lost, don’t we also rejoice with abundance?! So does all of heaven when lost souls are found—angels included!
Our love should be just as fixed on the Savior, as His is for us. Jeremiah records this promise from God: You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Jesus spoke of having a wholehearted devotion to God when He said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. (Matthew 22:37). No half-hearted attempts will do, we need to put in 25 hours a day, 8 days a week. When it comes to loving God, we need to be all in.
We serve a God who operates in full recovery mode. No matter what we may have lost, He gives us back more! Just look at the life of Job—possibly the “biggest loser” in all of the Bible. He lost EVERYTHING. In the end, God restored all that Job had lost. Yet with God, even “all” was not enough. He actually gave Job twice as much as he had before. What a profound glimpse into the depth of God’s love.
Whatever a thief may steal from us, whatever valuable possession we may have lost, no matter how many loved ones have passed on, God will restore what belongs to us. He not only restores, but generously adds to it from the riches of His magnificent glory!
He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it. Matthew 10:39
Once we find Christ, we turn away from worldly things that hold no eternal value. To turn a phrase…we have become foreigners in a strange land. We want to be lost again and again in our Savior’s love, and in the honoring of His commandments. We resolve to serve only Him. I love how the Apostle Paul talks about counting everything else in his life as loss when compared to the “surpassing value of knowing Christ”. Paul suffered greatly and lost many things, but he counts it all as “rubbish” because his greatest gain, his greatest treasure, is in Christ.
This is not the way of the world. When the worldly speak of losses and gains they are likely referring to the stock market—a volatile system that brings no assurances. It may bring some temporary monetary gain, but never the saving grace that we need. The true riches upon which we can trust implicitly do not rise and fall. They are rock solid.
Jeremiah 50:6 says this:
My people have become lost sheep;
Their shepherds have led them astray.
They have made them turn aside on the mountains;
They have gone along from mountain to hill
And have forgotten their resting place.
It’s been said that we are all born with a God-shaped vacuum that only He can fill. We make things so much harder for ourselves when we turn away from the source and the reason for our very existence. We become weighed down by the burdens that Christ wants to make light. Our soul cannot rest until it is resting in Him. In Him only have we found our true home.
Certainly there are times we may be prone to lament with the psalmist…I have wandered away like a lost sheep; come and find me, for I have not forgotten your commands. Psalms 119:176
And God responds:
I will seek the lost, bring back the scattered, bind up the broken and strengthen the sick; but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with judgment. Ezekiel 34:16
And Jesus responds:
This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. John 6:39
The time will come when His sacred search of recovering the lost and receiving them unto himself will have ended. This will be the dawning of a brand new “forever” day. This will usher in the beginning of total paradisiacal peace and where righteousness shall reign forever and ever.
Lord God, you are our lifeline, our safety net, preserving our life in the midst of dangerous storms and many disappointments. You are our one true friend, above all others. You are our righteous redeemer, the One from whom we derive all comfort and mercy and grace. We sometimes find ourselves lacking in true commitment and honoring you in all the ways that we should. Forgive us, we pray, and turn our mourning over what we may have lost—time, possessions, people or opportunities—into dancing by the light of your healing love. Amen.
