Prayer
Before you read, I invite you to pray this prayer based on John 8:31-32
Lord Jesus,
Help me to abide in Your word,
right now and throughout the day,
so that I may learn from You as Your disciple,
truly know the truth,
and have the truth set me free.
Amen.
Briefly prepare your heart in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken your sense of anticipation that God is about to speak to you through His Word.
Reading
We continue our slow journey through this part of Matthew 18.
So far in this chapter, Jesus has commanded us:
- to humble ourselves like little children;
- to treat the least, the lowest, the most vulnerable, the quiet, unassuming, humble, down-to-earth people with the most honour;
- never to lead one of our fellow believers into temptation and so cause them to sin;
- to remove from our lives anything that leads us into temptation and causes us to sin.
Today Jesus reveals the Father’s heart of gracious love towards all people and, although He does not say so in so many words I think we are expected to read His teaching as a command to adopt the same heart of gracious love towards one another.
God deeply loves each of us individually. At the same time, like a parent who loves all their children equally but, for a season, gives the most effort and attention to the child going through a difficult time, no one is quite as important to the Lord as the one who has wandered off. God is, in fact, like the good shepherd who loves all one hundred sheep, but is willing to leave the ninety-nine sheep who are safely together in the flock to find the one lost sheep who has wandered off all alone. This is the heart we are called to mirror!
All too often, Christian are prone to abandoning one another when we get lost. When one of us “wanders off” by falling into a sinful lifestyle of some kind, or simply by isolating him- or herself from community, we who remain are quick to stand in prideful judgment and to write them off. God, however, deeply loves and prioritises the lost and fallen.
Jesus gives us this brief Shepherd metaphor to implicitly call us to mirror God’s heart.
To us as Christian disciples, every person is to be loved and, when “lost,” to be pursued until found and brought home into the Kingdom Family of God’s love.
Contemplation
Please take time to ponder what Jesus has commanded us. Turn one or more of these declarations over and over in your mind. Keep them in mind throughout the day and live in step with Your King, Jesus.
As a disciple of Jesus Christ:
- I will never give up on a fellow believer who falls away.
- I will do everything I can to love them back into God’s arms!
Heavenly Father, please fill me with Your heart of love towards those who have wandered away from our fellowship, and give me the grace to pursue them with Your love. Amen.
Dave's Diary 
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