Where God’s Heart Is

Where God’s Heart Is

Read: Matthew 18:12-14

“If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?”

Matthew 18:12

“The salvation of one soul is worth more than the framing of a Magna Carta of a thousand worlds.”

—John Keble

IN WORD David says that the Lord is his Shepherd. Jesus says that He is the Good Shepherd. And in Matthew 18, Jesus tells us that the Shepherd is zealously focused on restoring lost sheep.

The implications of this for our understanding of God are clear: He is a seeking God. If we want to know what His priorities in the world are, we need look no further than here. He tells us. He is passionate about pursuing lost sheep. He will gladly leave behind the ninety-nine in their comfort and safety in order to track down a single, misguided sheep. All heaven rejoices when that sheep is found (Luke 15:7, 10).

The implications of this are so clear for us: As co-laborers with God, we are also to be seeking on His behalf. He is a missionary God, He sent a missionary Son into the world, and He calls us to have a missionary mind. If we are to be like Him, we, too, must have a consuming, searching passion for lost sheep.

IN DEED Do we want to align ourselves with God’s plan? Then we must single-mindedly pray for those who are lost. We must work to find them and to bring them into the Good Shepherd’s fold. We must give our resources toward this end. We must behave like a shepherd who is not content with a 99 percent success rate. God does not rest as long as there are lost sheep, and neither can we.

Today, there are more than four billion sheep outside the Shepherd’s fold. Half of them live so far out of the fold that there are no representatives of the Shepherd nearby. If we want to be in tune with God’s priorities, we must pray, give, train, tell, send, go—and never rest—as long as sheep are outside the fold.