Lost and Found – Part 2 — A ‘Time With God’ Devotion

Subscribe to the ‘Time With God’ Podcast

Transcript

Here to help you take some time with God today. And we do that by opening up the Bible and looking at what God has to say to us. Do you know you can tell how important a person’s relationship with God is by the time that they give to God? Well, what does that say about your relationship with God? If you want Him to become the most important person in your life, the number one relationship that you have. If you want God at the center of your life and you are right in the heart of what God is doing, then learn to give God time each day, time with God.

We’re talking this week on the theme of lost and found, and Jesus was spending time with lost people. In Luke chapter 15, he was spending time with the sinful people, the tax collectors who were kind of outcasts of society, and all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near Jesus to listen to him.

They didn’t feel like dirt when they went away from their time with Jesus. They felt like someone loved them and cared for them, showed them hospitality and spoke the truth in love.

The Pharisees didn’t like that. They thought religious people should stay away from sinful people. And so it says in Luke 15:3, Jesus told them, the Pharisees, this parable, saying:

What man among you? In other words, isn’t it obvious? Everyone knows this. If he has 100 sheep and has lost one of them. Doesn’t he leave the 99 in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he’s found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.

Then Jesus steps out of his story and says, I tell you to the Pharisees that in the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.

Hm, you can see where God’s priority is, can’t you? His priority is on the sheep which represents people who are lost, you know. God loves people so much He created them in His image to reflect His glory, to experience His blessings. And they’ve rejected Him and gone their own way. They’re lost from God’s perspective.

Hope 103.2 is proudly supported by

And even from their own perspective, because without God in your life, there’s no meaning in life, nothing to live for but yourself, and so they’re pursuing all these things they’re pursuing wealth and success and pleasure, and if they’re lucky enough to get those things. All of a sudden they find they have gotten what they thought would bring them happiness and success, meaning in life, but they’re still just as empty as they were, and they’re lost. Where do I go from here?

But Jesus goes looking for them. You notice that He leaves the 99 sheep. You know, God is so concerned about you. He loves you, He cares for you. But He’s much more concerned for those who still need to find Him.

God loves you.

But don’t miss out on what His great concern is. It’s the people around you who really need to be found. Well, be like Jesus. Spend time with them. Share God with them.

I’m John North.