If you were to lose something of great value, chances are you would do whatever it took to find that item. If you lose your phone or wallet, you will carefully retrace your steps until you figure out where it is. We know what has great value to us by how far we will go to find those items when they are lost.
In Luke 15 Jesus shares two stories: one about a shepherd who loses one sheep and leaves the 99 others to seek it out, and the other of a woman who loses one of her ten coins and searches her whole house until she finds it. Both the shepherd and woman stopped what they were doing and dropped everything else they had all because they saw the one sheep and one coin as incredibly valuable.
What has great value in our lives? Maybe it’s children, our family, our job, or home, but when it comes to matters of the heart, what might we say? That question is often a little harder to answer because it’s difficult to identify when something is lost within us. Maybe our relationship with Jesus slowly drifts away and we wake up years later realizing there has been a gradual shift in our lives and we feel far from God. Or maybe a relationship has been broken, and we long to see that bond restored. When there are things within us that have gone missing, we should desire to see them restored.
In Luke 15 Jesus shares two stories: one about a shepherd who loses one sheep and leaves the 99 others to seek it out, and the other of a woman who loses one of her ten coins and searches her whole house until she finds it. Both the shepherd and woman stopped what they were doing and dropped everything else they had all because they saw the one sheep and one coin as incredibly valuable.
What has great value in our lives? Maybe it’s children, our family, our job, or home, but when it comes to matters of the heart, what might we say? That question is often a little harder to answer because it’s difficult to identify when something is lost within us. Maybe our relationship with Jesus slowly drifts away and we wake up years later realizing there has been a gradual shift in our lives and we feel far from God. Or maybe a relationship has been broken, and we long to see that bond restored. When there are things within us that have gone missing, we should desire to see them restored.
In the same way, over the past couple of months we have talked about God’s heart for justice and our response to the brokenness around us, and I want to ask a question: do we see the lack of justice around us as the sheep and coin that have gone missing? Do we believe that God would drop everything just to see justice restored in our lives and those around us?
Because of God’s heart for the lost, we should seek out justice as if it is something incredibly valuable that has gone missing. Isaiah 1:17 says, “Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, pleased the case of the widow.” We are the shepherd and the woman called to go to great lengths to see justice restored around us, and as God calls us to seek out things lost, may we have a heart to seek out places where justice has been lost.
Because of God’s heart for the lost, we should seek out justice as if it is something incredibly valuable that has gone missing. Isaiah 1:17 says, “Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, pleased the case of the widow.” We are the shepherd and the woman called to go to great lengths to see justice restored around us, and as God calls us to seek out things lost, may we have a heart to seek out places where justice has been lost.
